


safety is relative

by jaythewriter



Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Begins with Entry 35, Gen, Kidnapping, M/M, Paranoia, Selectively Mute Characters, Trans Character, Unhealthy Relationships, domestic life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-04-13 07:22:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 24,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4513029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaythewriter/pseuds/jaythewriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jay has found Alex, after all this time, all that work. He's different now, secretive, avoiding questions and remaining out of arm's reach while offering Jay shelter.</p><p>Paranoia bears down on Jay-- he's sure there must be more lurking behind the scenes, just as there always has been, but there's nothing to suggest that there is. He has to be overreacting, taking every little 'clue' and running with it until he's two seconds from cracking.</p><p>Going by experience, though, he's right to be afraid. </p><p>Rating and tags subject to change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. discovery

**Author's Note:**

> New story. Got a lot of it pre-written, so expect weekly, possibly daily updates depending on its reception.
> 
> This particular chapter has blood in it, that's all I can think of off the top of my head but if there are other possible triggers present, please let me know.

Jay can’t place what it is that hits him when he sees Alex’s face looming in the doorway of the damned shack he’s been visiting for answers, shrouded in shadow and dust. 

It’s nauseating, heavy, he might call it excitement but this just misses the mark, straight shoots into adrenaline. His brain jumps about, screaming, the same three words over and over again: I found him! I found him! 

Rather, more appropriately, Alex found Jay. He never stopped /trying/ to find him, exactly, but coming here, the last thing he expected was his long gangly silhouette to approach him. This decrepit shack, with the trash bags taped over its shattered windows that rustle at the faintest touch of wind, there’s no way anyone would willingly be crashing here. 

Nobody who has a full grasp upon their sanity, anyway.

“Alex,” Jay utters, breathless. Air no longer comes to him, not easily, and his chest heaves as he gasps, swallows down the musty atmosphere. Alex’s appearance hit him square in the stomach; he might as well have punched him. 

But Alex doesn’t speak. He moves, like a dream, and maybe it is a dream, Jay is dreaming inside his car and his wishes are leaking into his sleepy mindscape. Blinking once, he opens his eyes to see that Alex is in front of him now, close enough to touch. Jay has to restrain himself to keep from doing just that. Just to prove it to himself: Alex is here, after all this time, after all that effort, and he fucking wiggles into Jay’s life again like it’s nothing out of the ordinary.

Alex raises a hand, crooks a finger over his thin-lipped mouth. Jay takes the signal to heart, closing his own mouth, though his chest has gone tight, his heart thudding fast in the hopes of breaking free. What? Why does he have to be quiet? 

He doesn’t want to look behind his shoulder. But Alex’s eyes drift over, staring at a spot that he cannot see unless he turns around, and he has no choice.

So he turns, his camera finding the offending spot before he does-- and it’s too late.

Wooden planks crash and crunch underneath feet that come banging into the room, slam, slam, slam. Bright white, a face appears, no-- a mask, /the/ mask, the person who has chased him, teased him, broken into his home and showed him that privacy is no longer a luxury he can revel in. 

Alex yells something, swears, and the two bodies bolt toward each other, Jay caught in the middle. He whirls away, instinct driving him but he’s slower than they are, can’t dart out of their collision path fast enough. Solid muscle and bone hit, crunching and sending someone to the floor-- Jay falls alongside them, clutching his chest, cradling the camera protectively. He peers down, gives the camera a onceover. Jay thinks he saw a knife and it’s better to worry for himself /but the camera/, it’s all he has. 

No, no, he has Alex, he needs to defend him too. But Alex is fine, he’s on top of the masked one, scrapes against the floor and pushes flailing fists to the ground. Jay struggles out of the debris, trash and broken glass, jeans ripped and knees bloody, and he hovers over the scuffle, tries to ask Alex if he’s okay before realizing that’s the stupidest fucking question. 

He reaches into the flurry of fists and knees to the stomach to try to separate the two, and--

“Shit!”

Alex screams, ripping away from his attacker and clutching his arm. They writhe, holding their mask to their face, the fastening string torn away and, if Jay just, he just… he could see them, find out who has been screwing him over this whole time. He rushes them, camera all but forgotten on the floor, and he rams his shoulder into their chest, winces inwardly at the bone on bone contact. Hitting them in the sternum sends them flying back onto the floor, Jay toppling down alongside them as gravity and luck simultaneously choose to gang up on him. 

He reaches, has a hand on the mask, covering the nose and hearing a voice beneath, uttering protesting noises, when it hits him: there might be nothing under the mask. It may be someone he has never met, or worse-- they are like the creature that lurks in the background of his videos, gazing, head to the side as though fascinated by his fruitless struggles for answers. No face. 

A void. 

That moment of hesitation costs him, though, and he curses himself for it when a fist crashes into his gut and knocks the wind from him. He gasps, flopping over to the side and feeling a broken plank dig into his back. One wrong push and it could thrust into him, into his spine. Paralysis, or death? 

The masked one is on top of him, straddling his chest before he can so much as find his feet. There is a split second where he swears that those painted black lips twitch, like they might be smiling at him but that can’t be, but, but anything /can/ be in these times and their fists are on his shirt, lifting him up, and, thud.

Floor. Back of his skull. Crack. Thud. Repeatedly. Cannot register the pain, doesn’t let himself acknowledge it for the sake of staying awake but he can’t, he feels the black creeping over his eyes and attempts to blink it away-- to no avail.

Brown eyes peer out from behind the holes carved into the mask, and for a second, he’s relieved. This isn’t a monster that has him in its grip.

But it has him nonetheless, and he has no choice. He’s gone. 

\--

Jay’s eyes sting when he first blinks them open, like they tend to when he is stuck on the laptop all night, battling his current hotel’s shit Wi-Fi. Memory states that he was nowhere near a computer the evening before, though-- no laptop, no phone, not even a television left on for a vague semblance of company. 

The sting spreads when he sits upright, moving much too fast and too soon. His head pounds when the blood rushes away from it and splashes around his tired bones. Stinging? Not anymore, no, a pounding, a beat playing against his skull, his legs. Was he running? 

Cushions lay beneath Jay, keeping his prone body safe from the solid concrete floor he feels beneath his wandering fingertips. Blinking the sting from his eyes shows him that he’s inside a small square room, nothing unordinary about it. In his eyes, it’s as remarkable as any other abandoned place he’s been stuck in. Food wrappers litter the spot he was lain out upon, cheap candies and chips. They aren’t dusty, not when compared to the ground. Swiping his fingers across the concrete brings him back a thin layer of dirt. Whoever ate these, they were here recently. 

“Hello?” he calls out. His voice echoes back to him, bouncing throughout his seemingly empty surroundings. Desolation and isolation? Great, he can do that, he’s fucking used to it. The problem is, it’s a little bit frustrating to be waking up with a shady sense of memory and find that there’s nobody around to help jumpstart it. 

“Hello!” Jay reaches out again, straining his voice so that anybody beyond this room might be able to hear him. There is a single doorway, albeit one that’s lacking a door, or hinges for it to be on. Splintering chunks of wood on the floor before it suggest that there might have been a door once, but... god knows what happened to it.

This time, when his voice comes echoing back to him, it brings a companion: Alex’s voice.

“Nice to see you’re not dead.”

Tall shadows bounce into the room through the doorway, accompanying his arrival. He stands upon the wooden debris, making it snap under his weight. Seeing him triggers dream-like sensations within Jay, filling his head with trembling images of three men, one of them himself and the other two-- Alex, the masked creature, upon each other, eyes dark with ill intentions. He remembers a weight on top of him, solid ground coming at the back of his skull, and, that’s it. 

But it’s the answer he’s searching for. It’s why he’s here.

“Oh,” Jay mumbles, reaching to the back of his skull to rub the painful lump forming there. 

“Yeah, /oh/,” Alex shakes his head before crossing the room to stand before Jay. He crouches down, takes Jay’s face in his hand and grips his chin, tilts his head this way and that. “I don’t think you have a concussion. Couldn’t wake you up, though. Jesus could have returned and you’d have slept through it.”

“Sorry,” Jay mutters, uncertain just why he feels he has to apologize for something he has no control over. He attempts to stand, his wrists struggling to support his less than ample weight. “Where’s the masked person? Did they get-- where’s my camera?”

Alex rolls his eyes before reaching into Jay’s jacket pocket, drawing the missing camera out into the open. He flushes red at his touch, caught off-guard; he forgot what friendly hands felt like. The last time somebody brushed skin with him, he was about to be arrested for trespassing, and he split and ran, their harsh voices following him into the night.

“They got away, yeah,” Alex continues after a moment of fumbling, watching Jay switch the camera back on. “I got them off of you when they had you on the floor. Soon as they were up, though, they slipped away before I could do anything. Didn’t want to leave you here, so I didn’t chase them very far. I doubt it’s going to be the last time we see them anyway.”

“Yeah, no, they’re like a shadow,” Jay sighs. He pushes to stand, closing his eyes and concentrating on finding his feet. The ocean in his brain has yet to calm, waves crashing and rocking him off balance. Clearly he hit the floor harder than expected. “I don’t know if I can leave like this.”

“It’s alright. My car isn’t far off. I didn’t want to go dragging you out there with this broken glass everywhere.”

An arm slips beneath Jay’s shoulders and suddenly his weight is upon Alex, who’s stronger than he remembers. Not that he exactly remembers Alex’s strength before he vanished into thin air, but going off of the old tapes, he was not this thick in the arms in their past life. He’s strong and Jay wants to know: for what purpose? 

“Where are we going? Aren’t we going to go find them? It’s--”

“We’ll go looking when you’re not stumbling around like a drunk,” Alex insists. There’s no fighting him when Jay’s head is swimming, his vision blurring when he keeps his eyes shut for too long. He does have a point anyway, what use is Jay when he can’t walk properly? But then, that leaves the masked stranger to scurry off as far away as they please. 

He bites the inside of his cheek, resigning himself to the idea of /another/ wild goose chase in, hopefully, the near future. Next time, he isn’t going to let himself get hit in the head. No more of this knocking out shit; he loses consciousness enough on his own, he doesn’t need help.

“I’m taking you to my apartment. We should be safe there.”

Safety. Jay could laugh if his mouth wasn’t so dry, his throat dryer. Asking for water seems like a stretch, though, like he’ll be asking for too much on top of Alex making sure he’s somewhere secluded, away from danger.

He is being awful nice. Not that friends wouldn’t do this for each other, but when years and years go by without so much as a message on Facebook or a three AM text message, one tends to assume that friendship is over. 

Maybe Alex doesn’t see it that way.

Nonetheless, Jay has to bite down this feeling that something is off, silently wonders if Alex is telling him everything. Information being withheld from him… but what questions does he ask to unlock it? There is something beneath the surface and if he hits the right spot, it will emerge from the dirt.

But for the moment, he has to keep his mouth shut and his head down, taking comfort in the fact that he’s staying somewhere that doesn’t have him paying nightly for providing a roof over his head. 

For now, that’s enough.


	2. yellow fingers, stillness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jay finds safety, shelter, and maybe, a home. Alex gives that much to him, but keeps what he truly needs from him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for implied self harm and content warning for a bit of a focus on somebody's smoking habits.

The tiny apartment stinks of cigarettes.

Alex has become a chainsmoker, one right after the other as he stands by his living room window and stares through the blinds for anything that might not belong out in the parking lot. A vague memory tickles at Jay, bringing him the image of Alex with a cigarette between his lips and a pencil scratching out the script for Marble Hornets, but he didn’t smoke for long. He didn’t get hooked on them like most people tend to.

So he probably could stop anytime he likes-- and that’s why Jay says nothing. It isn’t as though his own coping skills are any healthier.

(Bloodier, maybe just as dangerous, but at least his wallet isn’t in any danger.)

The sole issue with Alex’s new habit is that Jay’s makeshift bed happens to be the living room couch, and the cigarette smoke has been absorbed by the cushions. That first awkward silent night, with both men staring at the curling wallpaper and uncomfortably bare floor, he has to curl up with his arm over his mouth to block out the stale air. He wants to say something, but, again, what more can he ask for? Better for it to be cigarettes than bodily fluids staining the sheets, which, yes, he has come across more than he would like.

That problem with asking for anything, it gets in the way of Jay questioning Alex. When he wakes in the morning, rain tapping against the roof to greet him, his head is clearer, and the questions come flooding in. How did Alex find him? What did the masked creature want, why did it chase them down? Who is the girl from the video, and what happened to her? Does Alex still need help, and if so, what does he expect him to do? 

That last one isn’t the fairest, considering Jay instantly dived in headfirst at the first cry for help. But that’s mostly besides the point.

His first night passes without incident and without a single word spoken, and when he wakes, his camera is beeping, screaming for a power cord. Jumping to the duty instantly, he hooks it up to the nearest outlet, right by Alex’s own charging laptop. He unfolds the viewfinder, making certain that it’s still recording.

“I see you’re up on your feet, then.”

Jay hears Alex enter the room, drifting in from the hall. He smells something burning, prompting him to turn his head and see that Alex is scarfing down a black piece of toast. In his hands, he holds two more slices, both considerably more edible in appearance. 

“…I guess I am, huh,” Jay nods, standing upright. He didn’t realize it at first, too focused on the camera, but he finds that the ocean inside him no longer sways and crashes when he lifts his head. Faint poundings in the very back of his skull suggest that the pain will linger a little longer, but it’ll dissipate soon enough. 

“Still, take it easy,” Alex suggests before approaching, dropping the toast into Jay’s waiting hands. He has a satchel slung over his shoulder, bulky from whatever contents might lie inside. “I’m gonna go to work. Wi-Fi password is Spooky Uncle Tom Waits, no spaces. I’ll be back before nightfall and, uh, if there’s an emergency, let me know. Alright?”

Jay nods along, uncertain what to say and wanting to stop him as he’s stepping out the front door, but what can he do? Work is work and it isn’t as though Alex is avoiding him on purpose when work calls upon him. Still. Pretty convenient for him. And it isn’t until he hears the slam of Alex’s car door that he remembers he doesn’t have his phone number-- or, so he thought. His phone rumbles from his pockets, and when he takes it out, he discovers two things: its battery is running dry, and Alex just texted him.

‘This is my number. Emergencies only.’

It was in his pocket this entire time, so he thought, and maybe it fell out when he was dragging him around the other day, but-- something, something’s off. Paranoia and Jay have been good friends as of late, though, so he might be thinking too deeply into it. Wouldn’t be the first time. Sometimes a hole is a hole, a number is a number.

But that’s never the case when he needs it to be, is it?

\--

‘So you’re working now. That means you’re okay, right?’

‘Jay, emergencies only.’

‘But we need to talk eventually. You owe me a few answers.’

‘I owe you nothing. I’m probably as fucking lost about everything as you are. Let me get back to work before I get in trouble.’

‘But Alex, why did you need my help? You seem okay now. What about the girl in the video? Who is she?’

‘I’m as okay as I’m going to get. Her name is Amy, but Amy doesn’t matter, she’s fine. Now leave me alone.’

‘Alex, please, I just want to know what I’ve gotten myself into.’

‘You got yourself into a mess that doesn’t have a lot of answers or endings to it. That’s what. I’m shutting my phone off.’

‘Alex’

‘Alex come on’

‘Alex I’m calling’

‘Alex please’

‘please.’

\--

Being alone in the apartment all day makes Jay’s skin itch. 

He’s doing /nothing/. What could he be doing? That’s a damn good question, honestly, but whatever it is, he needs to be doing it, not sitting around fucking about on Youtube. Kitten videos can distract a person for hours, but not for as long as he needs them to.

Filming every second of every day that goes by, regardless of how empty and quiet those moments might be. Deciphering the puzzles left to him by one ToTheArk and cursing them for their love of mystery and far off heckling. Being constantly on the run, in his car, putting his foot to the gas when he thinks that another vehicle might be following him.

It all added up to a feeling that he was getting closer, that the answer couldn’t stay out of his grasp forever if he kept making moves toward it. One minute on the highway is another minute towards finding out what that faceless monstrosity truly is. 

If this arrangement Alex has set up is meant to be permanent, Jay doesn’t think he will survive. ‘No answers’, Alex says, no, no, that can’t be right. Nobody goes missing without a reason behind it, creatures hunt because they /want/ something. He has to know why this creature hunted Alex, and now why it hunts him-- and why now, there are more hunters, this time with false faces. 

(That’s what Jay tells himself, over and over, while he sits at the window watching for something that might be out of place. He says it once, twice, three times: there is an end to the tunnel and he will reach it.)

(He ignores the tiny voice that’s been growing bigger as time goes by: there has to be an end, or this will all be for nothing, and he will have to live with the fact that there are monsters out there that just want to wreak havoc.)

Every hour or so, Jay tries texting Alex again, seeing if he’s more up to socialization. Were they in the same house together, he wouldn’t be nearly so brave about it. Seeing his stoic face, unfaltering, his mouth a stiff line, it would be like pulling teeth. It might even be easier to knock Alex’s teeth out of his head, maybe he would start talking then.

Not like Jay is actually going to attack him, but he’s not a patient man these days. Exhaustion is quick to creep up on him and it pins him down, reminding him he can’t sleep, or the nightmares will catch him. Or worse; the nightmares will spill out of his head and they’ll devour him whole while he’s defenseless. Being constantly sleepless, he loses hold of most virtues. 

Still, being in Alex’s apartment, a steady place where he at least knows someone (sort of), he does feel safer. Closer to being safe. Whatever that means. 

He should be grateful for that. Alex didn’t need to do this. Sharing his food, his roof, when they just bumped into each other again. Really decent of him.

Weirdly decent.

Like, Jay wants to be suspicious of how welcoming he has been-- in spirit, that is-- but in the mixture of paranoia and frustration, a good deal of that frustration is aimed at himself. There is surely some good left in the world and he should take what he is given, returning as much of it as he can in the meantime. Alex is what he has right now and he’ll take it, because, well, it’s Alex. Besides, he told himself long ago that this would be all over as soon as he found Alex, and now, here he is.

Yet, Jay’s insides continue to tangle and jolt at the idea, at the what ifs.

He forces himself to sleep, slams shut his laptop lid and rolls over on the couch so that he’s facing the cushions. It takes longer than it should for the dark to wash over his eyelids and for it to pull him away from consciousness, but it does happen, which is more than he gets on most nights. His joints may ache and his brain might be yelling from the sheer boredom, but it’s something.

Just before rest takes him over, he hears the faint clicking of the front door behind the couch, and the shuffling sound that matches Alex’s walk. 

Relief ought to come to him, knowing that he isn’t alone anymore, but his exasperation remains and it is stronger. 

Far as Jay is concerned right now, Alex can take his answers, rather, lack thereof and go fuck himself.


	3. ingrate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Kralie home reeks of secrets and nostalgia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a nice long one for you guys to make up for the wait. Expect these to come a little faster now. Warnings for descriptions of gore and blood.

“Did you pick up anything on camera while I was gone?”

Alex sits on the far side of the couch, typing furiously at an open Notepad file. Jay dared to take a peek a few times earlier, but the last time he did, he was shot the most poisonous glare Alex could muster up. Not before Jay caught the words ‘misunderstood small town boy’ on the screen, though.

“Uh, no, it’s just me sitting around for hours and you coming home yesterday,” Jay replies, shrugging. He clutches his camera, turning it over, checking for damage. The scuffle in the shack did leave it bumped up but far as he can tell, he didn’t miss anything. At least, he thinks so, considering this is the twentieth time he has examined it.

“Good. I’d tell you we don’t need it anymore but better safe than sorry,” Alex says, voice firm. He clicks the save tab on the Notepad file before closing his laptop and setting it on the floor beside Jay’s. Folding his hands, he leans forward, elbows digging into his knees, eyes fixed somewhere far off. “Haven’t seen anything out of the ordinary for a while.”

“What, are masked strangers coming for your blood part of the everyday routine now?”

That-- of all things, that gets a laugh out of Alex, harsh and bitter and fast. Jay leans away, his nerves suddenly sitting on edge. 

“I mean besides that person. Before that day, everything had been going pretty smoothly.”

“By smoothly I guess you mean there aren’t weird… things lurking outside your window?”

Alex’s jaw tightens, but he nods. 

“Nothing. As far as I can tell, I’m safe, and if you’re with me, I’m gonna guess you’re safe.”

Jay bites at the inside of his cheek. Nice way of saying ‘you’re stuck with me here’. He isn’t living in unfavorable conditions, but Alex isn’t a fun roommate. Chainsmoking, secretive, keeping to himself, it’s more of what Jay is used to except in a milder dose. 

Still. Shouldn’t complain.

(Just because he shouldn’t, though…)

“Was that video of you and Amy the last time you saw it?”

Seeing as Alex is apparently in a talking mood, he tests the waters, dipping a toe in. He sees the tension in Alex’s shoulders, which he immediately hides by pressing his back into the couch, arms crossing over his chest.

“Yeah. It was.”

“And… Amy is okay, after that?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure. Stop bringing her up, will you? She and I broke up recently and I don’t need you fucking around with the emotional scars.”

Oh. Well. That answers who Amy is, or was, to Alex. Good to know that she’s safe too, regardless of their relationship status. 

Jay keeps his head down after such a snippy comment. He has some answers and they bring him some relief, but there just aren’t enough.

“So I guess you don’t need my help anymore?” Jay asks, picking at his fingernails. The undersides are no longer coated by a layer of dirt, and he’s actually managed to trim them in the past few days. It’s ridiculous, he might almost believe he’s human. What a crazy idea.

“No. Not really,” Alex admits, shrugging. He has yet to come out of the cocoon he’s formed via his arms hugging himself and the couch back.

“Then why have me here? You can’t be so bored you want a guy with no life as a houseguest.”

That causes Alex to come out, just a bit. He inches into sitting upright, rubbing his arms despite the heat in the room. Not even the open windows are doing anything to dispel the southern warmth. Still, Alex keeps his hoodie on, keeps his sweatpants on, shivers when Jay looks at him a second too long.

“I know your apartment burnt down. I’m just trying to be a friend and keep you safe until you find somewhere to live.”

He speaks as though there isn’t any possibility that something might follow him into wherever place he goes next. Is he marked? Did Alex wash off the scent the creature sniffed for whenever it came looking for him? 

“So we’re still friends,” Jay says, more of a question than anything else, but perhaps he says it too snide or there is too much bite to his tone. Alex turns his head, stare sharp and icy. Jay shrinks away, putting more inches between them on the couch as discreetly as he can. “What? It’s weird to ask that? It’s a fair question, we haven’t talked in years.”

“Yeah, for your safety. I never wanted to drag you into this mess.”

That-- Jay has the words shoved from his head and they fall in a pile at his feet, leaving his mouth useless. He tries to speak, but he can’t put together a single sentence without tripping over it.

“I mean, that’s, that’s great of you, I appreciate it, but maybe you shouldn’t have given me those tapes if that was the case.”

Alex leaps up quite suddenly, hackles raised. If Jay didn’t know better, he might have thought he was about to be struck; he raises his arms in defense and immediately puts them down, guilt lurking in his gut. 

“I gave them to you because you kept /asking/ for them. You wouldn’t leave me alone about them. You can’t fucking blame me for this,” Alex snaps. He steps close, looming over him, height twice as intimidating while Jay is seated. “You’re acting like I just handed them over. You hassled me for them because, for some stupid reason, you thought Marble Hornets was worth saving. It never was worth saving, by the way, I don’t know what gave you /that/ idea--”

“I wanted to save all your hard work! It wasn’t the best but I didn’t want to see something you were so happy about once go to waste,” Jay huffs from below. He hugs himself, turning his head. The room is considerably warmer now, closing in. His thoughts rush by, coming fast, slipping past his self-censor before he can think to use it. “And anyway, it’s not like you’d given me much to remember you by in the first place. You were fucking off by yourself after several weeks of radio silence and you wouldn’t answer the phone for anyone.”

“It’s pretty clear why I didn’t want you or anybody else peeping in on my personal life!” Alex barks, throwing his hands up. He gestures at the camera set up by the lamp standing by a stack of boxes against the wall, staring them both down. “You’re acting like I did something terrible in trying to keep the others /and you/ safe. I was running on purpose. It’s not like I was just--”

“I wanted a memento! I just wanted something to remember you by, somehow. And the tapes were all I had.”

Alex’s face flashes, and he straightens up, shoulders taut and jaw the same. His mouth opens, he wants to say something but Jay managed to shut him up, a feat the cast working on Marble Hornets would have been envious of. 

“That’s. You’re sappy as hell,” Alex says eventually. He can’t look Jay straight on as he says that, has his hand in his hair while he speaks. The man grits his teeth, stomping out of the living room. “That might have been nice in the past but you see what being sentimental has gotten you.”

“It helped me to find you. That’s all I really wanted out of it.”

Jay would cringe if he wasn’t so busy feeling sorry for himself. His face burns from Alex’s harsh words, trying to reason with himself that he isn’t weak for wanting to see his friend again. 

But that same friend, as they’ve both said, wandered off without leaving a single trace besides the tapes. There should be no point in chasing him down like a man on a mission when the endgame of said mission involves seeing someone who, by all evidence provided, didn’t care about him anymore. Yet, there Jay was, breaking into empty houses, screaming Alex’s name into them-- he seemed to need his help, though, he thought he could help, maybe be friends again…

By the time Jay chases the red from his face, he looks up to find that he is alone. Movement and clanging from the kitchen give away where Alex has stomped off to. Jay supposes that he was sick of the excuses and questioning. 

If he’s honest, he’s a little sick of it too. Only because the process is harder than breaking fucking bones.

\--

When Jay dreams, the dreams stick to him, burs scratching his skin. He shakes them off, laying the seeds down for him to pick up again while caught unaware. 

They don’t stop, relentless upon his exhausted skull, scratching the insides and leaving marks for him to find come morning. He ignores them as best as he can, until he sees the nightmarish visions left behind in the cracks. 

Alex’s face dominates these visions as of late. He stands out in the background, glasses cracking as something screams to Jay. It says his name, repeatedly, each repetition louder and longer. He cries back, crashing through shrubbery that grabs his ankles and scratches his bare arms. Branches rip him apart, taking his flesh until he is bare bones and a frantically beating heart. 

He never finds the source of the screaming-- and Alex appears before him, while Jay realizes, yes, he was being followed this entire time, he was there right behind him. Lurking between tree trunks, eyeing him woefully from the grass where he lay, guts strewn about the dirt.

“We have to leave,” Alex tells him, clutching the gaping hole in his stomach. Nothing remains inside, not a single drop of blood, coloring him white as chalk. “We have to go, now.”

“Let me help you,” Jay tries to say, reaching for Alex’s stomach. He attempts to speak, feels a rumble in his throat, but there is no voice box left, nothing but his bones and his failing heart.

He’ll feel it give one last flutter-- and he wakes, his real bones creaking when he bolts upright on the couch.

The couch, Alex’s couch, Alex’s apartment, he’s still in his apartment doing /nothing/ and being /nothing/.

Jay gave up on dream interpretation a long, long time ago. The first couple of nightmares, he let the paranoia sink its claws into him: were those bloody images of children running from a stretched shadow a vision of the future? A warning? 

Now, it comes too frequently for him to conjure up the energy necessary for such thoughts. If it has a meaning, then he can’t be assed to go searching for it. He’s too busy looking for clues in real life for /real things/. 

Then there are the moments when he is stuck at a red light, waiting, and he wonders if the clues lie in his dreams now. If he could just remember what he dreamt in the first place, then he might know. This is happening in his head, his head is where the answers are hiding, he knows something these passing cars do not…

And that is just one more reason Jay should be grateful he’s with Alex now. He caught himself on such trains of thought too many times, and those trains were due to crash if he wasn’t careful. Muddy thoughts, delusions of grandeur, fear, a certainty that something creeps inside of him waiting for the right moment to burst forth and sap up what is left of him. 

Sitting in the living room alone, sweat drying on his brow, Jay listens for telltale signs of life throughout the apartment. An eye toward the bedroom shows no light streaming out from beneath the closed door, but an ear cocked at the kitchen reveals the sound of running water. Either Alex forgot to turn it off before he left-- doubtful, more something Jay would do-- or he’s home today.

Deciding he’s not going to fetch any more hours of sleep after that particular nightmare, Jay drops his feet to the floor and makes his way toward the kitchen, taking care to make noise so that Alex hears him coming. That’s one rule he figured out the hard way: make sure to let the other person in the house know that you’re there behind them. Jay didn’t /mean/ to sneak up on Alex at the stove yesterday, but he’s used to keeping quiet and now he has the wrapped up blisters on his arm to serve as a reminder. 

“I’m up,” Jay calls out to Alex over the hiss of the faucet. The pipes sputter when Alex suddenly ups the force of the water, though his hands remain in the sink, scrubbing fast and hard at whatever’s hidden from Jay’s view. “Everything okay?”

“I was walking home from work and I got fucked up a bit,” Alex says too fast for Jay’s liking. He holds up an arm, showing red trickles streaming down his wrist. “Wasn’t paying attention, someone’s fence around here has a few wires sticking out and it got me.”

Jay gags at the image in his head, skin tearing-- (his own flesh, down to nothing, trees devour his vessel for nourishment) but he shrugs it off in favor of taking the paper towels seated by the oven. He tears off a few squares and hands it over to Alex, who mumbles his thanks and puts pressure on the wound. 

“Need any help? Like, do you have bandages somewhere around here?” Jay asks, watching the blood drip from Alex’s arm into the silver basin. It swirls into the drain, the water redder than it ought to be by now. 

“No. You’ve helped enough,” Alex mumbles. He stands straight, frowning for a moment before he sighs and turns his head to catch Jay’s eye. “…That slipped out, I’m sorry. I’m, yeah, I’m just annoyed.”

Jay frowns as well, hands pushed into his pockets. He didn’t catch what Alex meant until he did apologize, so if he’d left it alone, he wouldn’t be bothered. Would’ve been fine if he’d just left it alone, but, Jay won’t poke at the matter, it’s gone. He just lingers close, watching Alex, waiting for when he might be needed.

“…Listen, we are in a kitchen,” Alex pipes up, when the water starts to run clearer.

“Astute observation.”

“Don’t be a dick, I’ll change my mind,” Alex huffs before turning off the sink. He flaps his hands dry, paper towels wrapped around his arm and sticking to his skin. “I haven’t cooked any real food in about a millennia, give or take a few. Do you wanna help me make something? Don’t know what I have that could be turned into an edible meal but two brains working together…”

He taps his head before turning to a cabinet tucked in the corner of the room, its door hanging off its hinges. Moving aside the busted door, he peers at the contents inside for a moment before reaching in and taking out a box of flour.

“What are your thoughts on pancakes?”

“They’re syrup disks, but they’re also pretty filling which is good when you’re on the run and you’ve got two whole dollars to your name,” Jay says, shrugging. He dares to approach, testing to see if the tension Alex has been bringing everywhere with him is easing. His shoulders remain relaxed even when Jay’s hand brushes his to take the flour, and he actually grins, just a small twitch of the lips but a grin nonetheless. 

“You called them syrup disks when we were in school, too,” Alex points out. He turns back to the pantry, placing several more items out onto the counter. “Pretty sure every time we made them I had to make sure you didn’t put baking soda in them, since you couldn’t remember that it was supposed to be powder. Might’ve been Brian that did it, though.”

“No, that sounds like me,” Jay concedes with a nod. While the memory is far from solid, the way Alex talks about it sets the smog that resides in Jay’s head stirring. It forms an image of a stove desperately in need of a wipe-down, batter bubbling in a pan and cigarette smoke in his nose. Tim’s voice rises alongside Brian’s in the next room over, and Alex stands over him, clutching his wrist when he reaches for a box of powder- ‘no, here, let me do it…’

It sounds real.

(Jay wants it to be real, he wants to think that once upon a time, he was happy and he had friends.)

“Get over here and try to find some syrup, I’ll start the stove. Should’ve taught you how to use this thing when I brought you here anyway, it’s finicky. So, you see, this knob, it sticks. You have to show it whose boss.”

Jay listens close, taking care not to knock over the few spices Alex has laying around that look as though they haven’t been touched in a year. He has to watch the flame adjacent to the one they’re using now, it’s given Alex trouble in the past in shooting higher than expected. Or, in Alex’s own words, not Jay’s, maybe he is an accident-prone idiot in the kitchen and he didn’t know any better at the time. Nonetheless, he isn’t taking any chances, and he will avoid using that flame at all costs.

While Alex keeps an eye on the pan as it heats up, Jay stirs the batter they eventually create. He doubts coffee creamer is the best substitute for milk but Alex didn’t have any other alternatives, and they might actually taste like something on their own now. Sweeter, or, maybe goopier, but Alex squashes all theories in favor of just waiting to find out what the result is.

It’s nice, together, the two of them, not just as general company but as people who know one another properly…

Pleasant, yes, but, standing there beside Alex, calm, speaking civil, Jay’s nerves stand up straight, inching toward the edge of his skin. Is he so unused to proper conversation? 

Could be his gut telling him he needs to back off while he still can. This isn’t a stranger trying to drag him into a back alley with the claims that they’ll give him any information he wants, for a price. Still, he ignored his gut when /that/ happened, too desperate to consider the risks and, yeah, maybe not the most street-smart at that particular moment in time… 

This is different. This is Alex. They’re laughing as he lights up a cigarette, holding it between two cut up fingers. Smells like the kitchen before, when there were two smokers around and nobody cared much because the stench of cigarettes was absorbed already by the walls. Jay relaxes into the sound of Alex’s frequent exhale, the flick of his lighter when he dumps one cigarette outside and moves onto the next one. The pancakes sizzle and hiss when he flips them over, one by one. 

Jay isn’t laying on the couch, trying to crack a code while making certain Alex isn’t in the room to tell him there is no point. 

That’s a start. It’s painfully, wonderfully normal, and Jay smiles when they fight over the syrup and how much of it is too much. Alex decides a little dollop is enough; Jay has to cover the whole pancake to be satisfied and let it soak in.

They never bother to leave the kitchen, standing there and eating off of paper plates. Jay remembers what’s missing when he makes it back to the living room, full and sleepy-eyed, when he sees it blinking at him. The camera stares at him, accusatory. 

As ridiculous as it feels, Jay has to check the camera to be certain that he and Alex actually spent time together in the kitchen-- and though he does not see either of their past selves on the viewfinder, he hears them chatting from the next room. 

Alex passes by, eyeing the camera in Jay’s hands before shaking his head and grabbing his ash tray from the coffee table. He takes a not quite fully smoked stub from it and heads for the door, letting himself outside.

Taking the opportunity of being alone for a few moments, Jay hooks the camera up to his laptop and saves the file. No real reason besides needing it there. It’s either let it be deleted when he needs space or keep it in a more permanent spot.

Jay didn’t want to have to delete it when the time came.


	4. two face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jay craves the outdoors, exploration, anything that means not being stuck on the couch for another day. He goes to Alex, thinking that they could head out somewhere together.
> 
> Alex has other plans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for drug references and possible TW for potentially abusive behavior.

Sun splays itself over Jay’s aching eyes, pushing him to open them… and pushing him over entirely, his legs completely asleep. Jay falls off of the couch with a thud, wincing and rubbing at his knees. 

When consciousness takes mercy on him and lets him sit up, he realizes there’s something shuffling about in the kitchen. He sniffs at the air, picking up on a smoky aroma wafting in from the kitchen. Pushing himself up onto his feet, he wanders to the source and discovers that Alex standing at the stove, ham sizzling in a pan of grease. 

Something lifts inside of Jay. Cooking, again, that’s good. They’re happy together when they cook. Well, they were happy the first time, but maybe the pattern will continue. 

“It’s the only meat I’ve got left, I oughta go shopping,” Alex says by ways of greeting, as opposed to actually saying hello. Jay doesn’t take offense, though-- instead, he heads for the pantry, and goes up on his toes, reaching for the pack of brown sugar he saw there the night before. He shakes it in Alex’s direction, jumping when Alex snatches the box from him. “Good idea.”

They stand together, though Jay is considerably less helpful than before since he’s swaying on his feet and still yawning wide enough to crack his jaw. Alex doesn’t shoo him off, though, choosing to keep him there so he can chatter about this one co-worker, who never seems to stop and think about the needs of others, but noooo, he needs to take his break /now/, so he can go have a smoke. 

“God forbid he misses a cigarette, he just might miss the chance to contract lung cancer,” Alex rambles on, apparently immune to the irony. Jay keeps his mouth shut, or as much as he can, when he’s close to popping out his jaw altogether by the force of his yawning. “Christ, you good? You’re making me wanna face-plant into the pan and go to sleep.”

“Didn’t sleep at all,” Jay mumbles behind his hand, containing another round of oncoming yawns. He swallows them down with great effort, closing his eyes. “I slept too much the day before and I just couldn’t go back down last night. So I’m paying for it now.”

“You oughta go back to sleep while I’m gone,” Alex advises, stooping over to switch off the stove. He takes two plates out of the stack that he has by the sink, using a fork to distribute slabs of meat to each. “I’ll head out and when I’m back we can cook some more, if you want.” 

“Sounds alright to me but if you need help shopping I’ll go with you--”

“Go on and eat before it gets cold,” Alex insists as he shoves a plate toward Jay. He takes his own plate and begins to walk off with it. “I’ll head out, you shouldn’t have to go out while you’re this tired.”

“I’m not that tired,” Jay says after his back, before it vanishes around the corner. 

Not the worst thing in the world, to have somebody actually concerned over his wellbeing, but this is more than he was expecting. There’s food in his hands, though, and he’s free to sleep whenever he likes, not much room to complain. Mostly. 

Returning to his home-inside-a-home, Jay perches on the couch, holding his plate. He pushes the meat around using the fork he grabbed when Alex left him be, trying to encourage himself to eat. After all that vending machine junk and shitty diner food, this is gift from God in his hands. Yet he can’t imagine putting it to his lips and actually ingesting it. Eating is difficult, sleeping is turning into an ordeal; maybe next he’ll forget how to breathe and Alex will return home to discover his blue-faced corpse. 

So once the house is empty again, he’s back on his laptop, picking at the internet for something to occupy his time. Being in one place this long, he could potentially start job searching and fill out the empty air that’s taken up his wallet. No more odd jobs; he could stand behind a cash register and have people scream at him for their yogurt ringing up two cents higher than expected.

Or, on second thought, he could /not/ do that. 

There’s no reason for him to be stuck in this apartment for hours on end, though. For fuck’s sake, his legs probably can’t remember how to properly walk. He’ll have to relearn the process like a toddler. The camera would capture his first steps, just as a parent would want. Jay has to roll his eyes; he can tell he’s been here too long, his brain won’t let up on the stupidity. 

Rubbing life into his calves, he sits up and types into Google, ready to check out restaurants and parks around the area… except, he doesn’t remember the apartment’s exact address.

No. He never even learned what the address was. Alex just took him here one day and left him to figure it out. It’s something Jay should’ve known already, but it’s not completely unusual, is it? Especially when it’s just never come up in conversation. That’s all.

His insides won’t settle. He needs to settle. Settle for sitting, staring, listless, bored, lost, when will he make something of himself and help Alex, help himself, escape, escape, escape from what?

Here.

“I got a whole fucking chicken! This is going right in the oven next to the carrots. And I mean right now, these things are rotting by the second but I wasn’t going to pass up carrots for--”

Alex bursts in through the door, loudly announcing himself, voice filling the room and nearly tearing Jay from his skin. His nails dig into his hands, cutting red lines into his palm, fists at the ready. When did he leap up onto his feet? Why is he even standing?

“…you okay there?”

Jay blinks at Alex, looking at the groceries weighing down his arms. Not too much, but enough that Alex must have struggled his way up the steps to the apartment. 

It occurs to Jay that he should help. Shaking his head, he shrugs off Alex’s question and approaches him, taking two of the bags from him. Alex drifts behind him, eyes drilling into the back of his skull, the question clear even in his silence; why so tense, Jay? What did he expect to come creeping along, exploding into the room?

It’s just Alex. Just his friend.

His friend, who bought food for them to share, a chicken they could cook together and a movie to watch, as Jay discovers when he begins to unload the bags for Alex. He turns over the DVD cover, frowning as he struggles to recall the plot. Short Circuit, something about a robot coming to life…

"You ever seen that one before?"

Alex shows up behind him, dropping the groceries onto the floor as opposed to placing them carefully up onto the counter like Jay. He steps over the plastic bags to take the DVD from Jay's hands, turning it over and smiling down at the reviews on the back.

"Brian and I watched this when he invited me over the first time. We were stoned out of our minds," he reminisces aloud, the joy glittering away in his eyes. Jay has a full moment where he worries that he's about to be roped into his first real smoke before Alex dispels his fears. "Would've brought some pot but I don't know any dealers around here."

Breathing a sigh of relief, Jay feigns a smile and returns to the groceries. He puts the chicken-- indeed, a whole chicken, albeit with the remnants of a fifty percent off sticker on it-- by the sink, switching on the water so he can wash it down.

"I'd love to watch it with you. It's better than sitting in silence over a meal," Jay says, silently hoping that doesn't come out as too aggressive. Either Alex doesn't care or he doesn't notice; he hums while he squirrels away several bags of chips into a cabinet the opposite side of the kitchen.

"People say it's such a simple movie, just about a robot having some fun. But no, Jay, it's so much more," Alex rambles from behind the cabinet door. "They need to look deeper. It's not about the robot at all. More about what is and isn't life, like what is it that makes something alive? Is it a heart, a soul, the ability to communicate? It's deeper than that too, makes you question the human consciousness. Why are we so special, when honestly, we're just chickens running with our heads cut--"

"Are there any movies you wanna see that are out now?"

Jay speaks up before he really thinks any what he's doing. It's not to bring Alex's ramble to a stop, though that's definitely a plus. No, it's just, he sees the world from the inside, sees the news and the entertainment section screaming about this movie and that. He hasn't seen them from a person's point of view though, what looks best and what makes a person leave the house?

Put simply, if it gets him out of the house, Jay wants to be a fucking part of it.

Alex pauses, the crinkling of the chip wrappers taking the place of his once so very loud voice.

"Uh, well, you know I prefer the classics. But I do wanna see a few new things. For creativity's sake," Alex shrugs, straightening up and shutting the cabinet. He looks Jay over, eyes narrowed. "Why do you ask?"

"I wouldn't mind going out and seeing something," Jay answers honestly. He stays still, unable to quite meet Alex's odd gaze. "It'd be cool to go do something normal. I can't remember the last time I went to the movies. Must’ve been years."

The silence that follows is hollow, matching the hole that Alex seems determined to drill into his head through his stare. Jay shuffles his feet, glancing at the water that's still running. He turns the knob, the absence of its constant hiss leaving Jay twice as out of place.

It takes Alex so long to respond that Jay considers leaving the room, and he takes a step toward the doorway--

"No."

Then he's in front of Jay, a hand on his wrist. Not tight, nor restricting, but it demands his presence, that he remain still if he knows what's best.

"No?" Jay squeaks, reprimanding himself when his voice breaks on him.

(Jay can't think. Skin against skin, his brain is screaming and his ears ring-- has it been literal years since somebody touched him?)

(Is he so broken he craves even threatening contact?)

"We can't leave the house unless it's necessary. I only go out for work and for food," Alex explains, each word calculated. Soft voice, firm tone, the way someone instructs a child when they've made a mistake. “That’s how it is, and that’s how it’s going to stay.”

“But--”

Alex’s fingers wrap tighter upon him, pinning him to the spot.

“You’re not changing my mind. This is how we’ll go about it. It’s best for both of us and you need to respect that. Alright?”

Jay shakes. Alex must feel the tremors inside of him, there’s no way that Jay can hide them. Swallowing to cleanse his dry throat and failing, he nods. His brain is thrown into chaos, too many words and questions crashing together and breaking apart into useless pieces. 

Besides, arguing with Alex might lead to something worse than a harsh hand upon his wrist.

Slowly releasing Jay, Alex takes a step back and pastes on a small grin that fails to reach his eyes.

“How about we get to work on the chicken, then?” he suggests. Tongue stuck, Jay gives him a nod. Alex returns the nod, and places a hand on Jay’s back, guiding (pushing) him to the cabinet with spices. “Pick out what you think we’ll need and decide how hot the oven should be, I’ll rinse off the chicken.”

Remembering that he has hands, Jay lifts them up with more effort than he knows he ought to need, opening the door and pawing around for salt, cayenne, pepper. Whatever comes to mind. His mother’s voice is there, telling his ten year old self what you should always use on chicken. What else, what else, does Alex even have all of that, he didn’t have too much in the first place…

Jay can’t stay in the present for long after that. Autopilot keeps him upright, flitting about the kitchen and doing what is instructed of him. He picks up on Alex’s voice, chatting, the world spinning on, this world of theirs that Jay is trapped upon after being stolen away from what little excuse of a life he had left. 

The two of them end up in the living room (again), staring at a laptop (again), Alex sitting too close and sipping one too many beers. He continues his rambling from earlier, talking about this cute robot onscreen that is struck by lightning and how it’s meant to emulate Frankenstein’s monster’s creation. Or something. Jay can’t keep up with it.

He catches himself hugging a pillow to his chest, eyes glazed, credits zooming up the laptop screen. Alex’s head weighs down his shoulder, and, earlier, that might have been welcome. Jay would have liked it, reveled in the feeling of a person’s body against his. 

But his wrist aches-- not really, he knows he’s imagining it, but the newborn memory is strong and it marks his wrist black, red, purple, burnt from the heated grip Alex had upon him.

Peeking through his peripherals, he eyes Alex’s prone form, watches him wake up and blink the sleep out of his lids. He turns his head, grins at Jay and rubs his head against Jay’s neck like a cat. Murmuring his thanks and that he should get his ass to bed, Alex stumbles up onto his feet-- Jay reaches out to help, thinks better of it, and drops his hand again. 

Alex is gone a moment later, leaving him on his lonesome. He sits in the dark, the computer providing him with a single source of light that tints his sickly pale flesh green. Jay flexes his fingers, folding and unfolding them, watching the shadows trickle along the lines carved by his bones.

The laptop automatically slips into sleep mode, the screen dimming and stealing what little light he has.

He’s in a cage, and the dark cannot hide that fact from him, though it goes to great lengths to paint over his eyes and force him to stare into nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing, he is nothing.

Trapped in nothing.


	5. answers inside glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ensnared in a web that has seemingly no way out of it, Jay tries his best not to struggle, lest he attract the attention of its creator.  
> He sees freedom, and a new mystery through the holes in the silk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for possibly manipulative and non-physically abusive behavior.

The days drag on, and on, and on.

They fall into a strange routine, one where Jay tries his best to be friendly. Alex heads out to work or to pick up food, whatever they might need, and Jay will search the internet for movies he thinks Alex may enjoy. 

Of course, Jay has no interest in any of them. He may appreciate the hard work that went into their creation, but the positive feelings stop there. If memory serves right-- which it rarely does-- that’s how he was roped into Marble Hornets. If someone were to ask him if he’s smart, Jay would say he isn’t bright, he isn’t clever, but he is aware of when somebody lacks true talent. Passion is admirable in his eyes, though, and so, here he is, locked into a house under the threat of--

(What? Alex might hurt him? How could he hurt him any more than he already has?)

(But to lose Alex means to lose shelter, food, permanency.)

(Losing Alex means losing his last connection. His last friend.)

Because he is his friend, that much is clear to Jay. When Alex returns home, an eager spark in his eyes, he always asks Jay what he’s picked out for them that evening. He’ll hop onto the couch, turning the laptop to face him so he can see what Jay has in store. 

That’s the Alex Jay wants to keep seeing.

He doesn’t realize what he’s doing until Alex points it out to him. They’re seated together, watching a movie that’s filmed in black and white despite being made recently, when Alex suddenly laughs aloud to himself. Jay jumps, hugging a pillow to his chest, the weight of Alex’s arm on his shoulders so obvious to him now.

“You hate this.”

“What?” Jay blinks, perking up and frowning at Alex.

“Don’t act dumb, you hate this and you were bored out of your skull watching the stuff we watched before this,” Alex goes on, waving a hand at the movie. Somebody sits on a window sill, cigarette smoke rising from between their fingers, their eyes fixed on a point somewhere in the unseen distance. “You’ve just sat here checking the time on the wall and seeing if it’s nearly over yet.”

“Oh,” Jay sputters. He sinks down the couch, Alex’s arm coming with him. It’s not skin against skin but it’s close enough that he shivers and closes his eyes. “Sorry. I figured I might like it but turns out I’m not, but that’s okay. I know you’re enjoying it.”

“I adore it, but I think you’re trying to butter me up or something. What do you want, huh?” Alex eyes him up, a teasing grin upon his lips.

And, yeah, that’s exactly what Jay is trying to do-- he didn’t see it until Alex laid it out for him but he’s clinging to Alex’s good side, trying to pin him in place so the other one doesn’t show up and turn around with a harsh hand for him. The way Alex is talking about it, though, he seems to think Jay wants something from him.

He technically does. He wants to be allowed to leave the fucking house, like a normal human being.

Still, he remembers what Alex said: nothing can change his mind. ‘Nothing’ most likely includes sitting down to watch these wretched movies with him.

Jay doesn’t force further conversation, his insides a mess of squirmy creatures. The fact that Alex brought it up, that Jay was trying to win him over, he has a feeling that Alex knows exactly what he wants. And he isn’t going to get it.

So, Jay keeps searching for movies, a fruitless effort but one that earns him a kind and gentle Alex. Being trapped, what else can he do?

(How odd, though, that he feels he has to earn this nicer Alex. That he deferred to Alex when hoping to get out of the house, searching for his permission.)

(He’s a grown man. He shouldn’t get Alex’s say-so on whether he can step out of this building.)

(But--)

(But he doesn’t want to face the man that will appear if he goes against his word. What can that man do? He is stronger than Jay physically, and his strange behavior, a determination to keep a hold of the puppet strings, Jay isn’t prepared for it.)

(So he must lay there, still on the couch, bones tired, muscles tired, blood sluggishly chugging through his veins.)

(He lays in the dark, listening, but finding nothing in this nothing, sleep brushing his eyelids--)

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Something upstairs is moving.

Whatever it is, it woke Jay-- although that isn't hard to do these days. He imagines that it's a tree making a ruckus against the side of the building, slapping branches upon the bricks. Maybe someone in another apartment is up and searching for late night nourishment. Nothing worth staying up for.

He shifts to lay on his side, the couch creaking and sinking under him. It smells of both himself and cigarette smoke. Jay holds an elbow crook to his mouth, inhaling deep. While he doesn't stink of nicotine yet, it's only a matter of time, living here with Alex.

Living. Sitting. Waiting. For what? Freedom, maybe, but Alex has made that one hundred percent clear, he isn't going anywhere. Jay might as well be an oversized pet. He receives food, shelter, grooming, and gentle pats on the head in the form of achingly tender smiles and pretty words pertaining to a time long past.

Jay's eyes fix onto a spot on the ceiling, a black speck that if he squints, it might resemble a bullet hole. He pictures his body falling into a black hole like that one, needs to be surrounded by shadows, fat and filled by the light they've devoured on their way to take him. Sleep, sleep, sleep, please let him sleep, let the black take him so he doesn't have to sit in his brain and think about the man upstairs that has trapped him under the guise of kindness.

(Maybe it is kindness in his eyes, and Jay is awful quick to jump to the most paranoid conclusion possible. There could be a very good reason Jay can't leave the house, and it could be a fluke-- or he's letting wishful thinking get the upper hand.)

Logic is his saving grace, or it ought to be. But he can't remember the last time logic was much help in this world coated in prickly static and whispers of numbers on the air.

But, logic tells him that he can't trust Alex, and that Alex is up to something, even now.

Yes, now, when he ought to be asleep. The thudding from before is back, and, yes, those are footsteps.

Walking around at night is a perfectly innocent act. If it weren't Alex, that is. Jay would assume it was a bathroom break, but he's still moving around, opening up drawers and muttering aloud to himself.

He can't make out what he might be saying, but Jay intends to find out. Crawling on hands and knees, he descends from the couch and takes his camera from its perch atop a stack of filmmaker bios. It fits into his palm, suits him, a puzzle piece that's been lost-- an old friend, even.

Jay chastises himself; he's being stupid. The camera is a tool to further his progress in his disgusting game of tall monstrous cat and lost mouse. It doesn't grant him powers or boost him towards immunity.

Still. He stands taller, shoulders squared, fists clenched and at the ready for shadows that dart toward him too fast and solid. When it comes down to it, he will fight if he must.

Alex's murmuring has come to a stop. Jay has a foot in the hallway when he hears the loudest thud of all, the sort that accompanies full body contact. Usually with the floor.

He takes his time, keeps his head down, ears open, feet light. Nothing could get past him and surely nothing could hear him coming now, even if these floorboards whine at the tiniest amount of weight placed upon them...

His hand is on the doorknob, hesitating, but he’s pushing forth, twisting it, sending him forward and he’s inside, camera aimed, ready.

For nothing.

Alex lies in bed, the blankets draped over his legs. He stares at Jay, face illuminated by the phone in his hands. Frowning, he sits upright and quirks an eyebrow, waiting for Jay to explain. 

“…I thought I heard you fall out of bed,” Jay says, hoping that the darkness is enough to hide his wince. Really? Is that all he can come up with?

“Well, clearly I didn’t,” Alex replies, not unkindly, but he does eye the camera with mistrust. “What’s with that, then?”

“It was beeping on the ground on my way up so I just picked it up so I’d… remember to check it later.”

Jay could fucking kick himself. He’s turning into a paranoid mess and now he has Alex suspicious; he’ll never be able to get out of the house at this rate. 

“Interesting,” Alex murmurs before putting aside his phone, leaving the two of them in total darkness. “Well, you checked on me, I’m fine. Go back to sleep, Jay. And take that camera with you, it’s weirding me out.”

“Right,” Jay chokes out. He’s turning away before Alex can finish, viewfinder closed and camera turned down. The floor whines at his every step, forcing him to be self-conscious of the placement of his feet.

Once he’s in the living room, he lets himself loosen, tossing the camera at the couch cushions. It bounces, coming dangerously close to hitting the floor. Whatever, what use is that contraption to him nowadays? It’s giving him /nothing/, because he’s doing /nothing/, and if he does anything more than fucking /nothing/, god knows what Alex will do to him.

Over to the couch, again, where he buries his face in the arm and unleashes a scream that goes unheard by the apartments surrounding him. There are so many other people here, and none of them are aware of his existence. He’s alone, even with Alex, even when he tries to please him, stay on his good side. 

Sprawled on the couch, the camera juts and stabs into his side, a constant reminder that he’s fucked up.

(Again.)

Taking it into his hands, he carefully unfolds the viewfinder, peering at the flashing screen and finding that the last few minutes are saved onto the camera’s card. There can’t be anything worthwhile, Jay has checked it every day on fast forward just to see if he’s missing anything but what he finds matches up with his memory. 

Still. It’s a habit, a ritual, and so he moves into the camera’s video files.

Hitting the play button, he watches himself rising up off the couch.

Looking at the screen, Jay sees his own feet upon the carpet, shuffling around. He frowns; the sound from the tiny speakers is louder than he expected. So much for being sneaky.

The recorded Jay's stealth continues to leave much to be desired as he tip toes toward the hallway the real Jay just came stomping down in a tantrum. Screen shaking, the past Jay draws in a sharp breath at the sudden sound of a body crashing into-- something. Now, Jay would think that it was Alex leaping back into his bed. More hurried than necessary.

Except, the camera confirms for him a second time that he was being an idiot. There's nothing but a puzzled man lying innocently in his bed behind the door. His face manages to remain incredulous and turn Jay's own face red even from this small screen. He turns his head away, closing his eyes.

Alex's voice is tinny on these speakers but he comes across as annoyed as ever. Or, maybe not annoyed but exasperated, as though Jay is behaving like a child and insisting on playing games that he should've outgrown a long time ago.

The camera turns away from Alex, leaving him be-- and a white shape smears itself across the window, a reverse shadow, fleeting but very much there.

Jay immediately rewinds the footage, sure that he imagined it, but there it is again! It must be light reflecting off the glass, but it's too alive, faster than it should be and there isn't any light, none, Alex's phone is off, /there is something out there/.

Hitting the pause button, he happens upon the right frame, the precise second before the white figure slips beyond the window and out of sight. It isn’t a something so much as a someone, and the someone bears a pair of black eyes, and a dark mouth that smirks at the lens like they know they’ve been seen, and now Jay can’t do a thing about it.

They are-- were, were here. And Alex must have seen them, the window is in his view. He faces it from where he’s lying; he would have had to put effort into not looking at the window. Rewinding the file once again, Jay focuses on Alex’s face in the moments where he was recording the bed. If he squints, he thinks he sees him glancing toward the window, away from where Jay was standing. A fleeting flicker of maybe, fear, just maybe? 

He can’t place it. It sits wrong in his gut, Alex could have very well /not/ seen them, but Jay is fucking sure that his eyes lingered on the window, for a second too long. People say it every day: listen to your gut, your subconscious can tell if there is danger afoot even when you yourself cannot at face value.

Lifting his eyes to the hallway, he eyes the door that he came bursting out of, waiting.

What for?

He doesn’t know, but Jay can tell, there’s something worth waiting for now.


	6. digging up the dirt, to discover blood beneath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Left on his own, Jay takes matters into his own hands, and digs through Alex's apartment. He expects secrets, truths kept hidden from him, an explanation. 
> 
> He comes up empty in one hand, more questions in the other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a short one but I didn't want to change that ending there.

Sleep never comes to Jay, and for once, he doesn’t mind it.

The onset of insomnia gives him the chance to think about what to do next. 

His so-called plan of attack seems obvious to him in that he should have carried it out long ago. There was so much time spent sitting around, wasted, none of it used upon actually investigating his surroundings. He just assumed there would be nothing to find.

At first glance, Alex’s apartment is in no way remarkable. In fact, Jay thinks he may be paying too much for it-- he’s seen Alex counting out the rent, cash in hand, grumbling about how he needs to actually both eat and live under a roof. 

But Jay has never peered beyond the surface. The kitchen drawers are the only drawers he’s gone peeking into. He hasn’t found anything besides cutlery and the like there.

No, he hadn’t yet been in Alex’s room until the night before, and when he went over the footage again, Jay saw that boxes were strewn upon his bedroom floor. A few of them were stacked up almost as high as the ceiling, dangerously close to toppling over and scattering their contents everywhere.

Jay used to be the one who would immediately go to those boxes and start picking them apart, regardless of what else was going on. Unexplored space is untapped opportunity, the chance of answers waiting out of plain sight. 

This isn’t the time to maintain his position as a polite houseguest. He can’t ignore the boxes or the drawers, it would be stupid to leave them untouched now.

Alex appears from his bedroom around seven AM, the sun shining into the hallway to illuminate his arrival. He yawns and rubs under his glasses, pushing them up his forehead. 

“They have me early today, I need to get going,” he mumbles, sleep pulling his voice deep. He groans, back popping when he stretches his arms out behind him. “There’s leftover chicken in the fridge if you want it, I’m sick of chicken so it’s up for grabs.”

Jay nods, stretched out over the couch, neck against the armrest and hands carelessly resting over his head. Alex reaches out when he passes by Jay, running his fingers through the man’s hair before he stops by the front door. Patting his sides down, he squeezes at his phone through his jeans pocket and jangles his keys where they hang at his side on his belt loop. Satisfied, he turns the knob, and lets himself out.

As soon as he hears the front door slam shut, Jay bolts up from the couch, disturbing the pillows and sending them plonking down to the floor. It takes a fair bit of gracelessness for him to step upon them and nearly lose his balance, bare feet slipping across the floor. He catches himself against Alex’s wall, just in time to go barreling down the hallway and into Alex’s open bedroom. 

The thought occurs to him, many many times: he shouldn’t be doing this. He should trust Alex. Should. He took him in, he is feeding him, keeping him safe, and they’re, fuck, Jay doesn’t understand what’s happening to their relationship but his scalp still burns from Alex’s touch. Not a harsh burn or an itch, but the ghostly sensation of his fingers still there. Someone might mistake his gentle hands for--

Whatever, fucking whatever, Jay doesn’t want to think about it. The rest of that implies he fucking cares, he has no need to share space with Jay when he’s perfectly capable of crashing in a cheap hotel. He has done it before, didn’t plan on changing that routine until Alex came prancing through the doorway of the broken down shack.

Those are things that friends would do, and friends trust each other.

But Jay doesn’t trust Alex. 

He’s inside of Alex’s room, shoulders bunched and holding his breath. Drawers, drawers, drawers-- well, one drawer, but to Jay’s eyes it’s a trove of information. But boxes, those boxes first, he dives toward the nearest stack and starts combing through them. He finds rows of college books first, covers dusty and pages yellowing. Beneath that box is one full of posters, photographs, decorations that ought to go up on these empty walls. The last one on the bottom has books as well, leading Jay to move onto the next stack.

Too many of them are achingly empty. A good number of them contain mixed up piles of papers, frayed at the edges, covered in marker drawings. Trees, tall creatures, pleas for help flash up at Jay, giving him more questions than answers. Jay has seen these papers before: in the oldest videos of Alex when he was trapped alone in his home, scribbling madly. He was just as paranoid as Jay is now, with him staring out the windows, searching for any trees that might be standing out of place.

By the time he’s picked all of the boxes clean and returned their contents to their original spots, he’s hugging himself, trembling at the possibility that maybe, Alex isn’t hiding anything, nothing physical. There were so many little spots he could have hidden a tape, a newspaper clipping, a printed internet article, or, or /something/ of fucking interest, and there’s nothing.

Jay forces himself to push forward, approaching the drawers he ignored in favor of the boxes. He tugs them open, far harder than necessary but he can’t contain the frustration. He needs something, /anything/, if Alex isn’t going to talk then he needs to find a clue on his own, figure it out, there has to be-- he doesn’t know what he wants it to be, like a magic piece of paper with an essay full of explanations?

Socks, underwear, clothes, nothing out of the ordinary. He could tear Alex’s shirts apart, stitch by stitch, and it still wouldn’t take away the anger crawling beneath his flesh. 

Then--

He doesn’t do it on purpose, he’s throwing aside pajamas and letting them hit the floor rumpled, sure to be discovered and Alex will know he was going through his things, but right now he doesn’t care.

Jay sees it, but he can’t get his head around it. He sees the same white face that was peering at him through the camera the evening before. Except, not quite, it’s pale, glowing in the dark of this room, but, it’s not the same mouth. This one smiles, baring two straight rows of teeth, though it’s such a huge smile the joy from it is utterly lost. Not even the slightest bit genuine.

It sits at the bottom of the drawer, clearly not meant to be discovered. Black eyeless circles glare at him, accusatory. Taking it in his hands, he runs his hands over the smooth plastic, his skin tingling upon contact. Surely it’s mental, but his fingertips burn, and it spooks him enough that he has to drop the mask back into its original resting place.

Jay doesn’t manage to locate his senses amongst the mess he’s made. Instinct is what pushes him along, prompting him to take the clothing he hurled to the floor and put it away. Folding it exactly so it looks like he wasn’t there is harder than one might expect; he tries his best to remember what the arrangements before he came along but he can’t possibly copy it crease for crease. 

His mind fixates on the mask all the while, never seeing the socks or pajama pants in his hands but just the white face, grinning unnaturally wide. He has to be sure it’s still there, though he held it in his hands just moments ago. Lifting aside a stray pair of jeans he found in the drawer, he peers at it once again, and, yes, it’s real, it’s very much real and there and his hands itch upon touching it.

Slamming the drawer shut, he lets his back rest against it, sitting upon the floor and looking out at the empty walls. Alex was the sort of guy to put his name on everything, make sure people knew he owned it, that he made it. The idea that he wouldn’t make this room his own, put up posters and photographs (that he took, of course), it’s unfathomable-- and maybe Jay should’ve observed that and taken it as the first hint that something was off. 

But no, he had to go and trust Alex. He thought for even a second, that they were still okay. Jay felt the distance between them, saw it in the pauses and their avoidance of one another’s eyes, but he hoped, deep down, maybe--

(They’re still the same, they were going to be friends again, Jay wasn’t going to be alone anymore and he was almost /happy/.)

“Why?” Jay asks the air, wondering if he will ever receive the answer. Why has Alex done this to him? Why did he drag him all the way here, share his food, be gentle, loving, only to show that he’s up to something behind his back? Why is the mask there, one like the face that the creature wears instead of bearing their true face? 

Why did Alex ask for his help, when Jay is starting to think he’s going to be the one who needs help?

His face is wet. He doesn’t remember when he started crying, but he must have, as his hands come away from his eyes covered in tears. Drying them on the front of his shirt, he brings them back up to his face and hides in them again.

It isn’t long before they’re wet again.


	7. don't walk into danger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jay is finished waiting. He takes up an old tried-but-true tactic in his determination to find out what Alex is hiding from him.
> 
> He stumbles into familiar trees, and they bring him certainty: his worst fears must be coming true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big one, guys. Story is about to kick off properly.

Jay doesn’t speak.

He can’t speak. What is there to say? 

The logical part of him tells him that he needs to get off his ass, and speak to Alex. Confront him. Rip the answers out of his chest and run as far away from him as possible, until he’s safe again.

But, what does he say, how can he walk away from Alex intact, after taking what he needs? 

His behavior doesn’t go unnoticed by Alex. 

“You wanna come keep me company and watch this?” Alex asks him on the quiet evening after Jay’s discovery in his bedroom, the night spent in silence and stillness. He walks in and comes up to Jay from behind, waving a movie in his face. Jay had no prepared statement for him, so he could only take the movie (some trashy 20’s romance type thing, he doesn’t remember) and nod. 

“No smart remark, no eye roll, you didn’t even ask what actors are in it.”

Jay nods again, and forces himself to ask who stars in it, just to oblige Alex and keep the focus off himself. How much that works is up for debate, as Alex hovers and glances over at him far too many times during the movie. That’s unusual in itself, but he even keeps his comments to himself throughout the entire film. Nothing like worrying somebody so badly they forget that they like to hear themselves talk.

Or rather, catching their suspicions by the hooks, and said suspicions tug on Jay’s back for the rest of the evening. He feels Alex’s eyes piercing into his skin, reeling him in and dissecting him for clues. Jay scurries around him, running in and out of the kitchen and living room to avoid any questioning. 

He’s successful by the night’s end, managing to dodge Alex up until he takes to bed. 

“You sure you’re feeling okay? You didn’t say a single thing all night,” he says, leaning against the hallway wall. He appears taller than he truly is when he stands in this light, the living room lamp illuminating him and drawing strange shadows upon his form. It’s otherworldly-- or maybe Jay is seeing things, driven by suspicion and anger. 

“I’m okay. Didn’t have much to talk about,” Jay replies, calm. He taps at the laptop, looking through old footage. Amy smiles at him, despite not knowing who he is, and a younger Alex raises his eyebrows at her, curled up on his own couch. “Can’t help that, I’m stuck in here all day.”

The jab comes out of left field, taking even Jay by surprise, but it earns him the short-term result he desires. Mouth forming a stern line, Alex turns on his heel and heads off to his room, feet landing hard against the floor. 

Unfortunately, the long term result-- getting out of the house-- still looks far off to Jay.

Unless he were to leave by himself in the middle of the night, but Alex found him so easily in that shack. It’s not in the most obvious place, could be any other filthy abandoned shack, and yet, Alex knew where to find it. If Jay drove for eight hours, heading one direction and then the opposite, he doubts he’d get far enough to escape him.

(And, and shelter, food, /company/--)

The exhausting stress of such thoughts must be what puts him to sleep. Most nights he would be stuck awake, thoughts a mad chaotic rush and thudding heart providing a percussion-based soundtrack to the flickering film of his mind. 

But he must fall asleep late into the night, because before he can slip into dreams, Alex is thudding out the front door, sun cutting into the room and demanding Jay come back to the waking world. 

“Work. See you tonight.”

Nothing beyond that, not a reminder to eat or that there are leftovers in the fridge. A sickly whirlpool forms in Jay’s stomach, leaving him nauseous.

And-- it comes to him, that he still doesn’t know where Alex works, and that he could be going anywhere right now, and Jay wouldn’t know it.

Who’s to say that Alex is really heading to a job every day?

Jay’s on his feet, hopping off of the couch before he has a chance to change his mind. Parting the blinds slightly, he peers out the window at Alex, catching sight of him before he can get away. 

Alex trots down the steps, a protective hand pinning a satchel to his hip. Jay strains on his toes, squints after his back until he's beyond the perimeter of the window. 

Jay doesn’t waste any time. Camera in hand and off of the floor, he darts to the front door and turns the handle as fast as he can without it making noise.

They are the sole signs of life within the neighborhood on this early morning. Everyone has either already gone to work or they're hiding out inside to escape the sun's glare. A bright blue dot retreats around the corner of the building; Alex's bright blue shirt.

Jay gives chase, feet thudding down the steps. Descending to the ground floor, he crosses the parking lot, past Alex's untouched car. Jay missed the telltale ka-chunk of his engine rattling to life whenever Alex left. Its abandonment adds an additional strike to Jay's list of suspicions.

He sees Alex already more than halfway down the road, walking at a brisk pace. There's a purpose in his step, his head high and his hands shut at his sides. Cars zip past at a breakneck speed, rustling Jay's hair. They provide the perfect cover, his footsteps muffled under the sounds of tires grinding over manhole covers.

For a good five minutes, they walk with a similar stride, Jay ducking down behind parked cars when Alex turns to cross the street. The scenery remains unremarkable, road road and more road with a smattering of convenience stores selling junk, gas, and coffee.

It's when trees begin to dominate Jay's view that he actually pays attention. He lifts the camera without really thinking about it, angling it so that it can provide a third eye, capturing on film all that he doesn't see. The road calms down, less vehicles chugging along the asphalt. Jay slows his pace some to remain hidden, putting distance between him and Alex. There are several incidences where he believes he's lost him, but then that neon blue shirt will appear from behind the cover of a tree trunk, and he can breathe again.

Alex pauses at a lamp post, glancing in every direction and forcing Jay to jump behind another streetlight, squeezing his skinny twig of a body into a stance that matches the pole. Apparently satisfied with what he sees, Alex takes a path that leads into a parking lot-- and the lot is what kicks Jay's brain into gear, he recognizes where they are.

Rosswood.

He may be sick. These trees, endless loops of footsteps that lost themselves, stamped into the mud. Tree, trees, trees, forests, woods, creatures lurking, this is their favorite type of place and Alex is walking right into it at a confident steady stride.

Clutching his stomach, Jay carries on, taking shallow quiet breaths. He copies Alex’s walk again, concealing the sound of his shoes crunching twigs and fallen leaves beneath Alex's own noisy footsteps.

There is nothing here. No birdsong, not a squirrel to be seen skirting the branches. If it breathes, it's either Jay or Alex, and Alex is beginning to breathe pretty hard now. He pants, shoulders hunched, satchel close to slipping from his shoulder. If Jay listens over the crashing of his feet upon the forest floor, he catches him talking to himself. It seems like nonsense, but then again, Jay can't make it out very well.

They wander off the path Alex originally placed them on, fueling the panicked hamster wheel in Jay's mind. If they're in the forest, it must have something to do with-- that thing, the thing Alex said he doesn't see anymore. Did he lie? He's already lied about going out to work today... If he lied about that, what else did he lie about? Is Amy really okay?

Foliage grows wild here. It catches onto Jay's clothing, dragging gashes into the fabric. Alex dodges these branches and bushes easily, as though he knows this area well. He must, he walks without an ounce of hesitance. His breath still leaves his lungs haggard and heavy, but he doesn't look exhausted.

Scared, maybe.

Jay could laugh. Like Alex has any right to be scared. Jay's fucking heart may jump right out of his mouth. 

Up ahead, past the thinning trees, is a clearing where stones and rocks have gathered together on the dirt, where a stream may have once been. Alex crosses over it, taking his time on the rocks and speeding up his stride once he’s on the opposite side. Jay stays back, not trusting his feet to remain quiet on those stones. 

Past the dried up stream looms a tunnel, wide, stinking of rust and standing water. What frightens Jay isn’t the length of the tunnel or the shadows that move and warp within it: it’s that he can’t even see the end of it.

If it were Jay, he'd be running far, far away from this tunnel.

Alex, on the other hand, approaches it with a familiarity that sends a frightened shock through Jay. He could've been here a thousand times before. His stride is slow from exhaustion but calm, shoulders slumped.

He hesitates at one point, just at the gaping mouth of the tunnel, but it's not from fear or uncertainty. Casting a look of crinkled disgust at the muddy ground, Alex foregoes sitting for crouching, knees forming painful angles and his elbows coming down to rest on them.

And that's that.

Alex hovers in place for-- god, for forever. He doesn't twitch a muscle, doesn't shift to alleviate the pain on one leg or the other. Those focused brown eyes remain fixed on the opposite end of the tunnel, watching, waiting, for something that Jay can't even imagine or predict.

And nothing comes. No one, nothing, not even a bird meandering down the passage in search of worms in the mud. If anything, the birds have gone away, their naturally constant chorus still absent from the air.

It's this realization that pushes Jay to take a step back, because maybe, just maybe, this isn't a good idea. Alex is waiting for something, so sure it will arrive that he will not move. Jay doesn't want to be around for when it makes its grand entrance.

That's when his feet betray him, and Alex's eyes lift, pinning him in place.

The world freezes, icy as the pit that has appeared in Jay's stomach. All he can do is stare, the two of them caught at a loss, unable to admit their sins aloud-- lying, and stalking.

Lying, though.

The pit in Jay's belly grows, shooting up to his throat, and he takes a stuttering breath. This man, this old friend who leans too long against his shoulder. Touches him tenderly, speaks of their past on longing.

This man who promises him safety. Bounces on the heels of his feet at the prospect of being with him at the end of the day, after work--

There never was any work, though, was there?

And the mask, the /mask/, the pale creature in Alex's window--

Jay's flying on his feet before Alex can get in so much as a word. He sees Alex rise from his haunches just before he turns his back on him, but Jay is already gone, refuses to meet his eyes again.

Is that his name he hears, chasing him down? He can't hear over the roar of the wind bristling past his ears. Nor over the pounding of his skull, the scream that bubbles in his throat, the air that he swallows into his lungs. He hears nothing, sees nothing, is nothing all over again.

Wet blue eyes blink in the setting sun-- how long were they waiting there, or was it already late when they left? How could it be? Where has the time gone?

Orange light blinds him as it reflects off of the apartment windows. He doesn't know how he found the place, except by pure instinct and adrenaline. Icy fingers pierce into his lungs, draining them of oxygen, making every step up to the apartment agony. The stair flight rattles under him, and for one sickening second he's not quite upright and he might be falling from a great height but no, he missed a step and he's face down on the metal ground.

"Jay!"

It's the call of his name that drags him back to reality and away from the thought that oh god it really fucking hurts, there are twigs and leaves in his hair and cuts on his knees and hands but Alex's door is unlocked and he's inside, alone, but not for long.

Hurried by the sound of Alex's feet banging their way up the stairs, he runs for the hall, heading for the only door he knows has a lock after having his hand on it recently: Alex's room.

He's on the other side, on the ground, clutching his heart, breathing like he's never tasted air so good. This isn't safety but it's one more barrier he needs.

And, there he is. Trapped. Again. In Alex's house.

Jay lowers his face into his hands. Why is he such an idiot?

The door, against his back, the floor, against his feet, his heart somewhere in his stomach, too much solid against his fluid form. Waves and waves and a rock, a fucking boulder, a breaking tree crashing into him and sending his waters flying into the air. He shakes, shakes, shakes.

Jay hears Alex outside, slamming the front door behind him and leaving it unlocked behind him in his mad rush. He must remember to fix that, he goes stomping back a second later and the keys rattle loud enough for Jay to pick up on. The ground trembles at the forceful thud of his approaching feet, prompting Jay to tremble as well.

"Jay, I know you're in there."

His voice doesn't sound real. It falls hollow upon Jay's ears, or maybe he is hollow and the noise rolls around in him, clacking against his skull. Clapping his hands to his ears, he wills the noise to leave him.

"Get out right now. That's my fucking room. Get out."

"You were so eager to keep me locked in, now you're telling me to get out!" Jay shouts, so much louder than necessary, his voice vibrating against his hands and it hurts so much but it's out. He's less full, less likely to expand and just-- explode.

Alex is quiet after that, his weight definitely there but he doesn't yell anymore. He beats his fists upon the door separating them a few times, sending shocks down his spine, but he remains silent beyond that.

Jay can picture him perfectly, kneeling on the ground and resting his forehead on the wall. One fist would be raised and propped against the door. His glasses are sliding down his nose, sweat dripping through his hair and slicking up his skin. The run here was exhausting for Jay; it must've been the same for Alex, he's panting, heavily, painfully.

The image is so utterly human, it hurts.

He places his pounding head in his hands, closing his eyes. Alex's room is warm, bearing down on him and placing him at the center of the disgusting atmosphere. Sticky, pushing him down, stealing the air and forcing him to breathe deeper. Louder. He has to be loud, draw attention to himself, and he hates it, every second of it.

"Jay, I'm sorry."

That's a laugh. Sorry can't fix what little trust Jay had left for Alex, in his already dwindling supply of it. He remains silent, fists in his lap, wishing he could bury them in Alex's face.

"I-- no, I know that sorry doesn't do much of anything," Alex continues, seemingly reading Jay's thoughts. "But you gotta know that I mean it."

"What are you apologizing for? Lying? Basically kidnapping me? Being an all-around freak?" Jay demands in a voice that he doesn't recognize. It can't be coming from his own mouth. It must take Alex by surprise, because he pauses again and sighs from behind the barrier between them.

"All of it. I shouldn't have done any of it to you."

"Wish you'd realized that earlier," Jay spits. His nails cut into his palms, raw, red. "Why did you even do it in the first place, then? You went through first grade, you know it's fucking wrong."

"I do! But you know what you were apparently never taught?" Alex retorts with a swift smack of his hand against the door, getting a jump out of Jay. "Sometimes people have to do shady shit to get by and make sure worse shit doesn't happen! I was trying to protect you, Jay!"

"You're doing a great job of it," Jay shoots back, though with much less bite now. The rug seems to be slipping out from beneath him.

"Actually, I am, Jay, you’d agree if you knew what I was keeping you away from."

They fall silent again. Jay holds his knees to his chest, waiting for the right response to come to him and knowing it doesn't exist. It's his turn to exhale, long and exhausted.

Finding he has no other choice, he makes to stand up, bones protesting. He turns to the door and takes the hook out of the loop, unlocking it.

Alex sits on the other side, taken aback, much smaller than Jay remembers him. He struggles to his feet, pressing a hand to the wall for balance. His face is soft, tired, apologetic.

"I'm just-- I don't know what else to do," Alex says, voice low and bordering on a whisper.

"What exactly are you doing, Alex?" Jay presses the matter. He's gotten this far, and he'd like to think that he deserves a few answers by now.

Alex shakes. Harder than Jay was shaking a moment earlier. It sucks, that Jay should want to comfort him when he's the one causing the issue.

Taking hold of the satchel, he yanks it off of his shoulder and lobs it at the bed, where it bounces and hits the ground. Stomping over, Alex drops down and sits on his mattress, the springs squeaking underneath him.

"This, I'm protecting you from this," he huffs, digging around the satchel when he picks it up off the floor.

Inside is the very mask Jay discovered before, in Alex's drawers. He stares at the white face, its gigantic smile somehow bigger than it was when he first saw it.

"...what's that supposed to mean?" Jay blinks, sincerely puzzled. If he's protecting him from the mask, then, what? "It's not your mask?"

Alex snorts at that, letting the mask clatter against the floor. It smiles at them both from there, like it knows something they don't.

"Believe me, if they wanted to give me a mask, I would've picked a better one. I'm not worthy to have one, I guess, they didn’t give me shit. Yet you are, somehow, even though you haven't even accepted what they're offering."

What? /What/? Jay grips his hair, close to just pulling it all out in one firm tug.

"What the fuck are you talking about, Alex?" Jay begs of him, the exasperation breaking his voice down.

"I'm talking about how they want you. I was hiding you from them. Those masked people want you to join them."

Jay can't say what it is he was expecting as an answer, but it wasn't quite that.

He lets go of his hair, lets his numb tingling hands drift down by his sides. Something pulses inside of his skull, trying its damnedest to crawl out.

"You say that like, I dunno, they're part of some sort of organisation," Jay sighs. He sinks down to sit on the floor, clutching his arms, his legs, anything in reach.

"No. Yes... no," Alex utters before bowing his head, sheepish. "I'm sorry, but I don't know. It's several people, that much I'm aware of. But if it's something that was actually put together, and planned? I doubt it, honestly, but I just don't know."

"How can you protect me from something that you know nothing about?" Jay snaps. The alternating feelings of understanding where Alex is coming from to absolutely loathing him are starting to become exhausting.

"No, Jay, okay, that day in the shack?" Alex begins, lifting his head. If it were any other setting, Jay would be cowed by the venom in his voice. Right now, he just comes across as a child. "They were going to recruit you. They think they're doing right by you, because, far as I know, if you join them, you're safe from that /thing/. But it's not a good idea. At all."

"It sounds like it," Jay murmurs somewhat miserably. 

"You've seen how they are," Alex says, cutting Jay off. "They attack people and they're-- they're savage, secretive, I've never heard one of them speak. There's a lot of them, all over the world, just trying to hide from that monster and, well, at what cost? God knows what's going on in their heads."

"Then how do you know they aren't themselves anymore if you don't know what they're up to?"

"I just have a bad fucking feeling about people who attack other people for no reason!"

Alex has him there, Jay will admit that. He carries around a knife now, a folding knife that he can hide in his pocket. It's hardly the largest of blades and it couldn't land a single killing blow, but it's better than nothing. He wouldn't have considered having a weapon if he hadn't been bowled over by a masked creature of little words inside of Brian's home.

"I still don't understand," Jay sighs, lowering his head into his hands. He runs his fingers through his hair, tangled and greasy from three days of no showers. He'd forgotten to wash up between the sneaking around and the periods spent sitting in terror of the unknown future.

Alex apparently doesn't care how dirty he is. Another pair of hands are on Jay, weaving through the tangles. They tug them out, gently as possible.

"Neither do I, but, I will promise you this," Alex says, kneeling down in front of Jay. He's so close that Jay can smell his plain shampoo, but it's sweeter when mixed with the woody aroma if the woods. "If I find any answers, if something else happens, I'm not gonna keep it from you. I thought I was doing the right thing and, well, looks like it wasn't right."

"Uh, yeah, it wasn’t," Jay huffs, but it's hard to stay angry when his skin is blazing, heart thudding. Alex's knees touch his, his hands are on his face, he might melt any second now. "Please don't break that promise. I'm holding you to it."

Alex nods, and-- what is it, this weight, that Jay can't shake from his shoulders, that he can't settle for just a promise? But what else can he expect now, when solutions are a fantasy that he has no hope of fulfilling? There are issues, terrors hanging over their heads, and Jay doesn't understand one bit of it all.

What he does understand is that Alex is holding him, there are hands on him arms around him heart against his thump thump thump he's okay he might be okay he's finally fucking okay.

He shivers, and he paws the back of Alex's shirt, balling it in a fist.

The arms surrounding him wind around tighter. 

“I’ll start right now, then.”

Jay peers up at the ceiling, not quite seeing. 

“Yeah? What’s that?” he says into Alex’s shoulder. The fingers playing with his hair trace whirls into his back, leaving tickly marks beneath his skin. He arches back into his touch, soaking up as much as he can before it can be taken away.

“I’ll tell you what I was doing out there,” Alex continues. He stills, taking a heavy breath. “I do have a job. I’m a cashier at a game shop. Sometimes we get movies in, and I get a discount, so I bring them in. But, obviously, I didn’t go in today. I was going out to one of the masked people’s meeting place and I was waiting around to see if they’d show up, so I could return the mask. They gave it to me, wanting me to give it to you, but I hoped, maybe, they’d get the message if I left it for them, that you’re not interested.”

Jay would normally detest that somebody was making his choices for him, but this… he remembers the brief glimpse of the person hidden in the false eyes of the creature that attacked him and Alex, not so long ago. It sits wrong in his veins, makes him wince in knowing how very novel-esque it is, but he knows he saw something there in the creature’s true eyes. 

Pain. Whatever it is that pushed them to don the mask and attack people at the slightest sign of danger, he doesn’t want to be a part of it, regardless of the safety it might give him.

“You interrupted me, but, honestly, I think they would have just brought it back to me,” Alex says, knocking his forehead against Jay’s shoulder in exasperation. “They’ve done it before. I threw it out while we were leaving that shack and it showed up in my drawer the next morning.”

“That… would mean that they were in the apartment while we were both here,” Jay observes aloud, trying to settle the horrified flipping of his stomach. He swallows dryly. “They gave you the mask before we left the shack?”

“They pushed it on me before running off and it had a note that said ‘for Jay’ on it, so, yeah,” Alex nods. He slowly climbs to his feet, Jay coming with him, his legs numb and shaky. “I really don’t want that for you, Jay.”

“I don’t either,” Jay mutters before wrapping his arms around himself, Alex’s arms joining in once again. His icy resolve melts away completely, and suddenly, Jay is twice as self-conscious of his so-called sentimental nature. He bows his head, refusing to catch Alex’s eye. “Thank you, Alex.”

Alex doesn’t respond. He doesn’t need to, though, Jay doesn’t expect a ‘you’re welcome’ or anything along those lines. 

He kind of wants one, or a reassurance as to why Alex did this for him. That he cares, or that he’s all Alex has left.

(Jay doesn’t need to look far beyond these bare walls and empty halls to know that he’s the sole person left in Alex’s life.)

It would be nice, to hear it out of Alex’s mouth. 

But all he gets is his arms, guiding him to the bed to sit and rest. They rock together, Alex swaying, carrying Jay with him. The room is filled with the sound of skin running over fabric, soft shushing noises, and nothing else.

Jay settles for it, content, and containing the unease in his belly. He breathes, evenly and slowly, and lays into Alex.


	8. is it paranoia when you're right?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jay is safe at last. His senses stand on end, screaming, but he must be safe, he knows he's safe. Alex gave up on secrecy, he has nothing to hide.
> 
> Why is he still acting so strangely, then?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short, but worth it.

A bed feels foreign on Jay's back after spending his nights breaking his spine on the couch.

It's almost too soft, yields too easily to his form. His body is cradled in the mattress, containing him and creating this illusion of safety, that he might be alright and normal.

Better (worse?) yet is the body against his back.

Jay was always the big spoon when he happened to be dating somebody. Despite a silent wish for things to switch every now and then, he kept his mouth shut and let the girls do as they liked. They settled for him, after all. He should be grateful they want to be held by him.

This is-- yes, this is nice, even with his heart pounding harder than it ever has in memory. Maybe he's slipping into cardiac arrest, and he's dying and, shit, he'd die happy.

He'd die happy in Alex's arms.

Jay wishes he brought his camera charger into Alex's bedroom. He sees the camera seated on the floor, where he dropped it once Alex took him into his embrace. It beeps faintly in this darkness, the red light blinking, frantic. Its cries for help go unheeded. Once upon a time, Jay would have immediately leapt to its rescue.

The underlying current of uncertainty remains, but Alex wrapped around him keeps the majority of it from weighing upon him. These sheets glow a ghostly white under the single moon beam that manages to break in through the shaded window. He could be dreaming.

Alex radiates heat, the warmth flowing off of him hitting Jay in the right places. Soothing his sore back, bringing his tired and overworked legs back to normalcy-- Alex might secretly be a generator. Squirming ever so slightly closer, Jay presses his face into the man's chest and closes his eyes, breathing in his heat.

"Jay..."

His name, said in a breath, almost not spoken at all. Jay shakes and grips Alex's shirt.

"Yes?"

Alex's thumb rubs circles into his lower back. It would put him to sleep, if he could so much as think about sleep while his head is this noisy. Not to mention his heart, his lungs, his knotted stomach...

"I'm sorry," Alex sighs into his ear, breath dusting over Jay's neck. He sits up, releasing Jay from his embrace and leaving him cold, craving it.

"Sorry for what?" Jay asks, rolling onto his back and squinting up at Alex. He thought they were done with the apologies and confessions. What now? All that's left now that Alex could've done-- shit, he's crossed everything off except actual murder. Jay laughs aloud at the thought of his lanky friend so much as getting the upper hand in a fight, let alone killing somebody.

His laughter goes unappreciated. Alex's unreadable face doesn't move from its original neutrality. The sight wakens a nervous creature inside Jay's belly.

"Seriously, Alex, what's up?" Jay presses, making to sit up, only to have a wide palm gently push him back down.

"You'll see," Alex mutters before climbing over Jay, placing his feet on the floor. He's halfway toward the door before Jay can question him further, and already gone when he's upright again.

"What the fuck," Jay calls out to him, receiving no response in return.

He's sitting still for several minutes, until he gives up on waiting and whips the covers off of his legs. Upon rising to his feet, he hears a not so far off clunk that could be the front door closing.

Crossing down the dark hallway, he enters the living room where the blinds are still parted, moonlight pouring in to paint suspicious shadows across the house. Alex isn't there, nor does Jay hear him sneaking about the kitchen.

He calls out Alex's name, unable to contain the annoyance that slips into his tone. Receiving no response, Jay approaches the front door. He hopes that if Alex is out there, he isn’t too late to catch him. Twisting the doorknob, he lets it swing open, the night air flowing over his skin.

Two black voids greet him.

Jay doesn't have a chance to react-- he reels back, expects immediate attack, shields his face in preparation. The fist that might have been meant for his face strikes his belly instead, knocking the wind from him and sending him plummeting to the ground. Painful coughs wrack his form, shaking his lungs and making it impossible to breathe.

Legs slam down at either side of him, pinning him in place. Looking up through watering eyes, Jay expects to see the pale mask that was smirking at him from the door.

Instead he's met with a pair of red eyes and a sad, sad mouth, slashed into the black fabric of a ski mask. His heart speeds up; a new creature, one with strength he has yet to gauge. Alex's words stay with him, the implications that there were more beyond the white faced one.

Jay flinches, seeing a hand coming at him, but no pain arrives in its wake. A cloth presses over his mouth, too low to suffocate him, but he remembers the articles he read off the internet when his paranoia took over. That sweet aroma-- it's not good.

He fights, slaps at the hooded creature and claws at their eyes. Contact is never made. They grip his wrist, twisting it, the pain shocking him into stillness. Jay cries out, yells for Alex, they're here, they're here, they've found the apartment!

Then he hears Alex's voice, speaking, not to him but the pale faced creature at the door. He says that he wishes they had waited until later, when Jay was asleep...

Shadows ebb over Jay's vision, inching in and closing him off from the horrific sight above him.

He forgets to fight it, stuck on Alex's voice, calling out to him and trying to form the words to ask why.

That's all he can think of as his body falls limp and his mind drowns into shadow.

Why?


	9. ...---...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lakes  
> In Stillnesss will  
> Take  
> Every  
> life  
> of the  
> Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big trigger warning for drowning and slight body horror, maybe.

Splashing.

Slamming into a hard surface. Pain, ricocheting up his spine.

Soaked.

Jay. 

(that's his name, right?) 

Jay lies in a pool of cool water, shallow, but deep enough that he should be leaping out of it.

His limbs aren't his own. Somebody has come along and replaced them with leaden logs, sewn into his flesh. Maybe the one splashing around nearby is the perpetrator, how dare they.

He tries to open his eyes. No chance. His body is frozen in sleep and he is hovering inside his brain, waiting. Once upon a time, he was dreaming of a lightless land, and his mind snapped out of it-- but his body failed to catch up along with his brain. Strain as much as he might, it's no use.

"This feels weird. Like, cultish. You did this to me when you guys--"

Whose voice is that? Jay remembers it and it casts a flicker of fear in his heart, but he can't put his finger on why. His memories drift in the waters nearby, licked by gentle but insistent waves. They linger out of his reach, floating away to new lands.

"You-- no, I'll carry him, I saw you drop him twice on the way here.”

Movement, then hands from out of the blue, taking him by the shoulders and pushing him out with the tide. How relaxing, allowing-- (well, didn't exactly give his permission but what the hell can he do about it?) letting somebody else take the wheel and control this exhausting, demanding body.

Water. Nothing but water. His skin tingles, close to numbing over entirely. Maybe he'll dissolve and flit about the lake forever, no more thought given to cameras, lurking creatures in the dark, no masks or lies.

Then he goes under.

Bubbles emit from his blue lips. Yes, blue, he can feel them turning blue and the voices above his head lose meaning and cadence. He can hear them but he can't make them out, and for whatever reason that scares him more than drowning.

And-- he's tugged back up by his hair, a shock of pain rolling down his scalp.

"What the fuck are you doing?! You said you wouldn't hurt him!"

There are bodies standing beside him, three if he's counting right. He may very well not be. Two pairs of legs bumping his sides and hands holding his head, petting his wet hair out of his face.

A deep sigh, from his left, and the lifting of hands from the water, the surface popping as they emerge. Drops flit down onto Jay's face, sent flying by the fingers that take away the protective hands.

"...so you won't...? I'm staying- no, I am. I'm not letting you pull any sneaky bullshit behind my back."

The legs surrounding him shift, disturbing the water and creating squelching sounds that turn Jay's stomach. Hands return to his head, they push, and he's under again.

He should be more worried about this. Honestly. But he could be in bed, playing the snooze game with his alarm clock for how much he wants to fight this. It's too early, let him sleep, sleep, please...

No more air, he can't breathe and he couldn't be calmer about it. His head feels full, he's sinking, falling, gone-- his mouth opens, the water floods in, finally finally he can sleep--

His head bursts from the surface, lungs taking in an involuntary gasp. His eyes open at last but he can only see stars, winking at him from the heavens... no, that's the stars in his eyes, he is in space, the heavens, he's falling again, but the arms around his neck keep him floating.

The world washes over again, white and gleaming.

He lets it take him away, his body sagging, his whole being, drifting on these waves.

\--

“Wake up.”

Exhaustion.

Will Jay ever have a restful slumber again? 

Stinging behind his eyelids, stiff bones and joints, he wants to crawl out of his body and find a new method of existence. This one has outlived its usefulness, and if he can, he’s going to skip doing the whole body shindig in the next life. 

He blinks the salt out of his eyes, squinting into a bright light that shines over his head. Jay realizes that it must be the sun, it hovers high above and now it’s frying his already aching eyes. Lifting his arms cracks his bones, sliding in and out of place. 

“Get up.”

Jay would laugh if it weren’t for his lungs. He opens his mouth, tries to pull in a breath through the gurgling mess inside of him-- and a fist pounds down on his chest, crushing the water from his body. He cries out, rough coughing tearing up his throat. 

“I said get up, now.”

A silhouette blocks out the sun, standing over his collapsed form. He can’t ignore that voice now. Punching him in the chest is a great motivator, regardless of the ice in his bones. 

Breathing through his chattering teeth, he pushes his broken body from the grass, feeling the dirt that has caked into mud upon his still wet back. Yes, yes, that’s right, he was floating, he was in the… sea? No, it was a body of water but it was small, he didn’t smell the tang of an ocean upon the air but the calming grit of standing water.

“Do you need help walking?”

The voice from before is gentler now, it must’ve noticed his wobbling knees. Jay nods, gritting his jaw. A strong arm slips underneath his, hefting him to stand at full height, as much as it puts a strain on his creaky spine. Forcing down a shaky breath, he cringes his way through the pain, letting the other being guide him along.

Dizzy waters have seeped into Jay’s skull, rocking back and forth to throw off his balance. He has to stare straight ahead, into the tree trunks that stand too close together and the couple that walks in front of him and his pushy companion.

One walks at a strange gait, shoulders hunched and head constantly whipping side to side to check for interruptions. The other limps along, dragging one leg behind the other. How bad do they look in comparison to Jay, he wonders?

“Stay up.”

Jay winces, clenching every muscle when he’s yanked up by the scruff. He must’ve been sagging to the ground, overwhelmed by his own weight, however little there is to hold up. Grass catches onto his toe, threatening to send him off-balance, but the person carrying him refuses to let him drop to the ground.

“We have to get him home, you guys messed him up. We’re not stopping anywhere for whatever more ritualistic bullshit you want to inflict on him.”

The pair walking ahead of them pauses and turns to look back-- and the light catches their faces just right, or rather, lack of faces. Masked, staring, two red eyes, two hollow black lidded ones, looking him up and down and he jerks away, cries out as his body rebels and he plummets to the ground.

“Oh-- god, Jay, come on, don’t do this. Jay, please,” the figure that was helping him calls out after him, as he scrabbles across the forest floor on all fours. Dirt accumulates beneath his nails, stones scratching into his flesh, but he doesn’t get far before his muscles give up on him. 

Jewels, stars, gleaming in front of his eyes, dazzling him-- it’s a pair of glasses, catching the sun and glinting beneath its bright gaze. Jay covers his own eyes, breathing fast, because, now he knows, he knows who was holding him and who dared to cart him around, the one that lies and lies and lies--

Crack.

Something blunt, into the back of his skull, metal meeting bone and knocking away what vision Jay has. His consciousness is next to go, trickling out like his head sprung a leak.

“First you drown him and now you’re going to give him a concussion! What the hell is /wrong/ with you two--”

Alex’s voice follows him down into the dark.

He lets go.


	10. bed bound broken boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At last, Jay awakens as Jay, as himself, and he remembers everything. The water that swallowed him whole, the source of his headache--
> 
> And that Alex was a part of it all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very talky one. Wanted to put it up before GMX, though.  
> Offhand, I can't think of any trigger warnings beyond the descriptions being possibly seen as body horror.

This is the softest bed he has ever been in, bar none. The cushiest pillow, the warmest blanket, the most yielding of mattresses, and Jay can’t fucking appreciate it because he wants to die.

How many times has he lost consciousness in the last day? Days? What time is it, and where is he, /who/ is he anymore? He’s sure this will be it, he’ll die the next time he loses himself to sleep, and there will be no more confusion and fear.

Pain radiates throughout the back of his head, down his stiff spine, to his extraordinarily warm toes. He flexes his hands, winces when he stretches the cuts littered across his palms and fingertips. 

At least this time there aren’t any voices demanding that he perform the impossible. Like movement. Or general existence. He could likely fall back asleep and he’s fairly sure he would be left to his own devices. 

Except--

“Oh. Uh.”

Alex.

At times, Jay might not have recognized his voice, too lost in his pain to properly register his surroundings, but now he knows Alex has been with him this whole time. The memories are hazy but they are there, and Alex’s image is painted within them.

Before, Jay would have jumped away and forced his body through the pain, but if he lifts his head he’s awash with nausea that disturbs the nerves down in his very toes. He swallows, shoving down the sickly sensation.

“Don’t touch me,” Jay orders, uncertain of where Alex might be. He blinks fast, his vision swimming and never quite returning to normal. He attempts to sink further underneath the blankets, thick and almost too warm. “You get near me, and I’ll…”

“I won’t get near you, then.”

And so he doesn’t, he actually follows up on his word. Jay wants to laugh at that thought but his scratchy throat doesn’t allow for it. He simmers in his gathered body heat, staring up from beneath the blankets, a trapped animal watching its captor closely. 

“I just wanted to come check if you were awake yet and… you are, so, I’ll leave you be.”

Alex steps backwards, hands stuffed down the pockets of his hoodie. He glances between Jay and the floor, eyes flickering, shoulders gathered up. 

It can’t be that easy, though, can it, that he’ll let Jay breathe? It’s strange, so strange that Jay is sitting up against the sickness flowing in his veins. 

“Alex.”

He freezes in the doorway, lifting his head and meeting Jay’s foggy eyes. There’s a glint, like what he saw as they laid in bed together, warm, safe, safe, Alex was safe, what happened?

“You trapped me so you could give me to them,” Jay hisses through clenched teeth. “That, that stuff, about keeping me out of their reach--”

Suddenly, any nerves that were in Alex’s stance vanish, dropping away. He stands straight, face pinched in frustration.

“I trapped you to keep you safe, Jay.”

“Good job, obviously, since they just tried to drown me!” Jay barks, just before his voice gives out on him and he coughs, keeps coughing until his throat is raw. He clamps a hand over his neck, breathing gone raspy. “Did you think I’d forget that? I-- I remember everything, it’s there, I know what happened!”

“I wasn’t counting on you forgetting a thing because I don’t plan on hiding anything from you anymore,” Alex snaps, his face softening, not enough to chase the anger away but he would look hurt if Jay cared to look deeper. “This isn’t my fault. I couldn’t keep you safe anymore because they figured out you were staying with me, when they saw you in my house.”

“What-- what?”

Jay holds his hands to his head, sinking back down into the bed. His breath comes fast, hurts in his chest. Alex’s resolve remains icy.

“I didn’t want to lock you up in my house. But I also didn’t want them to figure out where you were hiding because then, all bets were off, they’d find you,” Alex goes on, crossing the little bit of distance he’d placed between him and the bed. Jay cowers under the sheets, seeing clenched fists. “I’m in deep shit with them now because I tried to keep you from living this life. If I couldn’t keep you out of this shit once, then, yeah, since I had a second chance, I was gonna protect you no matter how I had to do it.”

“I still don’t understand,” Jay whimpers into the pillows. Alex’s voice grates on his brain, knocking around the headache that’s sunk its claws into his skull. He closes his eyes, hides away. “You’re talking like you work with them.”

“Jesus Christ, Jay.”

The floor creaks, prompting Jay to peek out from under the covers. He discovers Alex seated on the floor, cross-legged and bent double at the back, head in his hands. Jay might’ve reached out to touch him before, but the idea of brushing skin with him, he could be contemplating allowing fire to engulf his hands.

“Just, how else would I know that they’re safe from that thing?” Alex says, shoulders shuddering. He bends further, forehead nearly touching the ground. “How else would I know where their meeting place is? How do I just /know/ those things, Jay?”

“I don’t know,” Jay sighs miserably. Now it sounds obvious, of course, hearing that out loud. Of course Alex is with them, of course he would be, it’s one thing after another, piling up. He blinks… but, what about-- “But you were trying to attack the one in the white mask.”

Alex scrubs his hands down his fuzzy face, gone too long without a blade and soap. He stares off somewhere that Jay can’t see. He doesn’t know if he wants to.

“I was. That was the day they recruited me.”

Jay inches to the farthest edge of the bed, trying to grab onto every word and dissect it for meaning, for the truth that Alex could be hiding from him-- probably /was/ hiding from him. He squints at the back of Alex’s head, an unseen glower.

“What do you mean?”

“Just what it sounds like, Jay,” Alex breathes, the exasperation heavy. He kneads into his knees, gripping onto his own legs to the point that his knuckles blanch. “When they knocked you out, this… other one, their friend, I guess, snuck up on me. They had a knife on me and threatened me until I said I’d cooperate, I had every intention of just running away once I had the chance but they splashed me with /something/ and I haven’t seen that thing in the suit since then.

“And every time I see those two, it’s almost, I dunno, amiable now,” he goes on, struggling to speak for a moment. He takes off his glasses, swiping an arm across his eyes. “They don’t attack me anymore, but it feels wrong, like they expect me to be just like them. The only reason I’m not fighting it is because they’re looking for Amy, too.”

Alex sinks back into his hands, face hidden away, shoulders, chest, heaving from something he refuses to name. Jay listens for sobbing and hears labored breathing, air rolling through tight lungs.

Amy.

The name drifts to the front of Jay’s memory and teases him, tells him it’s important but it won’t say why. He clutches the blankets in his fist, staring Alex down, wishing he could see his face and glad it’s turned away from him at the same time.

“Amy?”

Alex coughs, emerging from his hands and turning a narrowed eye to Jay. His nails prick into the blankets, digging into his palms.

“Yes. Amy.”

That name is familiar, so familiar, and-- yes, Jay knows, Alex mentioned her before, the blonde girl, flitting before a camera and flashing it a sweet smile, yes, /her/. And Alex said, wait, he said--

“I thought you found her.”

“Obviously not if I just said I still need to save her,” Alex grouses. He pushes up from the floor, fists at his sides. It seems to take a monumental amount of effort for him to wrench his fingers into relaxing so his hands hang calmly. “I only said I’d found her so you wouldn’t offer to help. That would’ve gotten you involved quicker. But, I would’ve run long ago if I didn’t think they might actually help me find her.”

For a moment, maybe, Jay finds that he understands. He was willing to try almost anything when he was still searching for Alex. Upon receiving even a single clue that Alex might be in a mysterious place that he had no knowledge of, he went running headfirst and threw himself into that shack. Joining the creatures that held a knife to his throat and seemed ready to take his life, so he could find his girlfriend? 

Risky, but, in this world they’re trapped in, reasonable, in Jay’s eyes.

But the anger still bubbles hot in Jay’s pained chest. His hands ache for a body to grab, to fight and flail and scream. Having the truth withheld from him, like he’s a child, or worse, a risk, a potential danger, he wants to pound the pillow under his head until it rips apart but that would mean lifting his arms. This body refuses to let him be angry, and that only contributes to the fucking problem.

“You could’ve told me all of this,” he says, steady as he can when he’s inching closer to fighting his body’s signals and jumping for Alex. It’s a hunger that cannot be satisfied but it refuses to leave well enough alone.

Alex turns around, flips his hands over to show empty palms as he shrugs, looking to Jay with most tired eyes he has ever seen. 

“Would you have believed me?”

Jay freezes, his chest cold, empty. 

Would he?

Every eye on the street was watching him, and there they were in the woods, from the very tops of the trees. Those trusty tapes would glitch and clip at the ends, the camera dying when it’s needed most, taking away the last source of safety.

He was doubting his own experiences. 

Looking in the mirror and seeing his raccoon eyes, dry lips, he wasn’t looking at somebody he would trust. 

If he couldn’t trust his own brain, he couldn’t see himself trusting Alex, not at the beginning.

His doubt must have shown in his face, because Alex cocked his head, as though to say he told him so. Alex shrugs one last time and heads for the door, giving Jay his back and leaving him cold.

“They’ll probably be around to talk to you soon. I’d just go back to sleep, they’re outside right now and god knows how long they’re going to be.”

“W-wait--”

And he’s alone again. 

He ought to be used to that, right? And maybe relieved, too, to be away from this ticking time bomb that Alex has turned out to be, but he’s not, he’s sitting too wide awake and too sick and too scared to let himself fully process what was told to him.

Worst of it is, somewhere out the window across the room, there are masked people, waiting, looking for something that he doesn’t understand. He sees shadows flickering across the lights of-- what time is it, he can’t find a fucking clock anywhere in this room-- day, dawn, someone, something is there, could be the trees or they’re closer than he could possibly think.

And he has no choice but to sit.

And wait.

And wonder.


	11. sleepy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trapped in bed with only his thoughts, Jay finds that they're racing, racing, racing-- and as usual, he finds no answers. Not even when the masked people emerge beside him, silent and staring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took literally months to update. For the longest time I doubted my ability on the fic and I wanted to work on more personal things anyway. Upside? I do have a ton more on the way. 
> 
> Content warning for forced medication (as in, someone is forced to take pills).

Jay couldn't say how long he was waiting. He did eventually locate a clock in the room, but Alex had it unplugged, leaving Jay to pat around the floor searching for the cord. Coming up with nothing, he lay back on the bed, pretending he isn't about to hack up a lung or two.

He counts the seconds as best as he can. How long is a second? It's-- a tick of the clock, which he doesn't have. As long as the pronunciation of Mississippi, too, and so he utters the appropriate state for what must be hours, to himself, to the ceiling, to the pillows, trying to keep count when his head insists to him it must've been over a thousand Mississippis now but he knows it's less, far less, so he has to come to the beginning again and maybe that will bring him closer. He's had to restart about ten times now, it must all add up to an hour now, right? So now it's been an hour, and his mouth tastes of paper, so he has to imagine the word instead.

One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three... he's back to waiting, sitting on his ass, though this time with the knowledge that Alex fucked him over.

Four, five Mississippi, maybe seven, eight, did he skip one? And how did Alex and his friends (those masked people, he works with them, he willingly works with them but Jay can't lie, he would have done anything to help but still, /still/, it's so wrong, giving yourself up like that--) what was he thinking about again? His insides ache, his bones, his stomach, his lungs.

Twenty, thirty, forty, he's exhausted, but sleep doesn't want anything to do with him. He utters a shaky breath before throwing the blankets, letting them land at the end of Alex's bed where they cover just his feet. A chill runs through his limbs, but sweat coats his skin, covering him better than that blanket ever could.

Mississippi, Missouri, Minneapolis, mint, he needs a mint, his mouth tastes like hell. This body isn't fit for human use, it's a toxic wasteland, seeping into the cracks and poisoning his mind. Trust, comfort, love, is he capable of that now? He would miss it if he could remember what it was like.

(Laying next to Alex, his face buried safely in the heat and heart of a man he never thought he would see again. So calm and so safe, full of promise, warm brown eyes that pierce his insides and demand his attention--)

Jay closes his eyes.

When he opens them, he sees a dark room, the light drained away into a space that he cannot find. He wants to crawl back into the space within his brain that he accidentally fell into, there's nothing here, even less than the nothing before.

Jay's mind has him firmly awake, though, and he has to sit up, acknowledge the functions of his body. His tired bones don't fight him as hard when he rises to cross the room, knees shaking. For whatever reason, he expects to see a room that doesn't belong in Alex's home when he opens the door. Going about it like one would with a bandaid, he tears the door open-- and sees the hallway he has come to know well.

Thank god. If he had to deal with a house like Brian's, again, when he can barely move...

Shaking his head, Jay pushes forward, limping across the carpet toward the bathroom.

Fighting his way into the room, it's enough of an ordeal dealing with what he has to do in there. He shakes harder upon exiting, clutching his stomach. There's nothing left inside him and he knows he ought to get to the kitchen, but that might mean a second bathroom trip.

So he turns to return to the bed, and there are eyes in front of the door.

Four. Four eyes. Two red orbs that melt down a face broken by a life of chasing, running, looking over their shoulder. Two black rings, craters to bury secrets that might be hidden in tired eyes.

The masked ones stand before Jay, looking to him, expectant. Behind them, the door stands open. They were waiting for him.

"Oh," he sputters. He stares, blinking, waiting for them to speak, move, do something, but they might as well not see him standing there. Clearing his throat, he stuffs his hands in his pockets and he inches toward the door. "I... can I go sit?"

If those eyes could blink, it would make things much easier, somehow. The two of them shifted aside, giving him room, but they don't respond to his question.

Nerves sharp and stretched, he lets himself in and returns to his bed, stealing glances over his shoulder with every step. They follow him in, leaving the door open and moving to stand in the middle of the bedroom. Their feet cross together and step in sync. Jay squirms from his perch on the bed.

"Okay. What do you want from me?" Jay asks, steady as his raspy voice allows. He speaks civilly under the pretense that they would have killed him already if they were intending to. They had every chance while he was out of his head as well.

At least, that's what Jay is hoping.

Matching patterns from before, they stay quiet-- but the more familiar white mask steps forward, reaching for something inside their tan jacket. The edges of the coat are still damp, assuring Jay further that the water filling his lungs wasn't a dream.

Out comes an orange bottle rattling with pills. They shove their mask up to their nose, just before screwing the cap off of the bottle and emptying two capsules into their open palm. Tossing them back, their throat bobs, and almost instantly, they relax, shoulders sinking, lungs releasing an audible sigh.

Popping the cap back on, the white mask tosses the bottle to Jay. He doesn't bother catching it, sure that he'll miss, but thankfully it lands in his lap.

"...what?" Jay says, taking the bottle in his hands. He turns it over, finding that the label has been ripped off, leaving behind residue. "Do you, uh, you want me to take this?"

The one that Jay doesn't know as well, wearing a black ski mask tucked under a yellow hood, nods. That's the most either of them have said and it's still not even a proper word.

Jay wants to tell them that they're crazy, but he'd be saying nothing new to them. And anyway, they made it pretty clear that the pills aren't dangerous. What's the point of poisoning themselves to coax him into doing the same?

Then again, they have done crazier things in the name of fucking Jay over. So of course he hesitates-- until the hooded one reaches into the depths of their coat pocket, drawing out a folded knife. They hit the switch, the blade swishing out and catching the little bit of light streaming through the window.

"Okay, okay," he huffs. Might as well. It's either the painful and violent way out or poison.

Can't really bring himself to care, anyway. He bitterly ponders whether Alex will give a shit, letting the pills fall into his hand and throwing them back. They burn inside his esophagus, but he fights them down, just before he has a crumpled water bottle shoved into his hands. Taking it gratefully, he gulps half of the bottle, trying his best to ignore its dusty flavor. Leaving behind a swallow or two swishing at the bottom, he offers the rest to the white mask, who doesn’t even hesitate before snatching it away. They suck down the water, making greedy noises. Jay winces in disgust.

“You’re welcome,” he says, gripping the blankets as though they might protect him. He rubs his empty stomach, wondering if it was a good idea to take them without food, though he supposes it isn’t a big deal if it’s poison. “Now what?”

The hooded one lifts their hands and tucks them under their head, pressing their hands to their cheek, miming sleep. Jay glowers, face screwing up in frustration.

“Are you serious? I just slept for however long and you want me to keep sleeping, without even answering any of what’s going on--”

“They want you to rest up until you’re able to act like a normal human being again.”

Alex’s silhouette appears by the doorway, standing just so Jay wouldn’t have seen him unless he was looking for him. Even in the dark, Jay sees his slight scowl.

“They didn’t want me coming in to disturb you unless it was necessary,” Alex shrugs, arms set across his chest. He kicks at the floor, eyes cast down. “They know you’re not my biggest fan right now. But, basically, until you’re feeling like you again, it’s no go.”

“No go to /what/, Alex?” Jay begs the answer of him, clamping his hands into useless fists. He’s fine not going anywhere, he doesn’t want to even think about making the trek to the kitchen and back right now-- but /what do they want/?

Alex scrapes a tired palm down his face, glancing toward the night sky that sneaks in through the blinds over his window. He shakes his head, turning his head to look out of the room before finally speaking.

“We’re looking for people to help them and we’re hoping to find a permanent way to shake that monster. That’s the simple explanation of it and I thought it was pretty obvious when I said we were searching for Amy, but obviously you’re a shit listener. Can I go back to bed?”

His eyes fix onto the bed that rightfully belongs to him. Jay squirms, nails biting into the weaker threads of the blankets.

“…yeah. Go back to bed.”

Alex lets out a derisive snort before making his leave, vanishing fully out of the bedroom and leaving Jay alone with the masked ones. The pair of them haven’t moved an inch since Alex appeared, and even now that he’s gone, they linger with their eyes fixed on Jay, doing what they do best and just fucking /staring/. Jay clears his throat, ready to ask them what they still want.

They instantly snap into action, though, stepping quickly considering it’s such a delayed reaction. The hooded one darts for the window and throws it open in one fluid movement, defying the locks that Jay swore were done up on it a few hours ago. Tossing up a leg, they flip their body over into the tree that scratches against the side of the building, disappearing from view in mere seconds.

The white mask stays a tad longer, barely noticeable, but Jay sees a flicker, a gleam through the mask’s eyes-- the owner’s true eyes. Maybe he would have spoken up, if they stuck around for any longer. They’re out the window soon enough, though, following the same maneuver that their partner pulled. One leg on the outside, straddling the sill, then bring the rest with a swing of the other leg.

They take their time in lifting the second leg.

Again, Jay is alone, but this time the anger that he was left with is replaced by unease.

And, again, he has nothing left to do but sleep, to do as he was told because what else is he going to do? Lug this broken body out into the living room where Alex is presumably asleep, and demand answers of him when he’s this quick to anger? Chase the strange masked ones out the window and into the dead of night, to god knows where?

As Jay lays his head back down, he has to question why Alex didn’t just take his bed back, have Jay recover on the couch. Not like he isn’t used to the lack of support for his back or the crick in his neck that comes from using those decorative pillows as proper sleeping pillows. He seemed plenty bitter enough that he wouldn’t care if Jay was a little bit uncomfortable.

Crickets lull him into this restless state of sleep that he can’t quite legally call sleep, but he accepts it, taking it over sitting around.

As usual. 

He wishes he had his camera.


End file.
